


The Longest Distance Between Two Places

by RZZMG



Series: Rare Pairs [24]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, Fate & Destiny, Headcanon, Het, Loss of Virginity, Science, Time Skips, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 16:30:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 44,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10857801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/pseuds/RZZMG
Summary: Time is immutable... but filled with magical possibilities. Hermione Granger discovers this truth after an accident in the Department of Mysteries leads to a series of bizarre, random, fantasy-like encounters with a strange, handsome young man donning Slytherin colours.NOMINATED - "BEST TIME-TRAVEL FIC" & "BEST SOUL BOND FIC" - 2017 SHRIEKING SHACK SOCIETY'S MISCHIEF MANAGED AWARDS ON FACEBOOK





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was my entry for the 2013 Hermione-Smut Fest-Round Seven (hermione-smut.livejournal.com). 
> 
> Here was the prompt I worked from:
> 
>  
> 
> _Prompt: #5 - As an Unspeakable, Hermione has decided to work with the magic of Time and Dreams. Unexpectedly, one of her studies/experiments backfires on her, and she ends up getting flung back and forth through time whenever she falls asleep, only to go back to her 'normal' time upon waking. Each time she travels, she ends up running into the same Death Eater. Why do they have a connection & how can she break it so she'll stop travelling around? Her lack of restful dream sleep is beginning to kill her!_
> 
>  
> 
> _Harry Potter Pairing(s): Hermione x Tom Riddle (not Snakeface!Voldemort, but SexyEvil!Tom), or Rabastan Lestrange, or Regulus Black, or Nott Sr. (Theo's dad), or Draco Malfoy_
> 
>  
> 
> _Suggested Kink(s): Mix-and-match any of these elements as you see fit, author - Dark!fic, Non-con, Dub-con, Consensual Sex, Bondage, Spanking, Rough sex, Sex in places other than a bed, Anal, Oral, Bukkake, Silk, Cropping, Nipple/clit spanking, Toys_
> 
>  
> 
> _Additional Comments: Does Hermione's interaction in the past change things slightly in her timeline & how so? How does she break the cycle? You decide, author, but these issues must be addressed in the story. Please no scat, watersports, felching, fisting, snowballing, or santorum._
> 
>  
> 
> This fic was imagined after watching that scene in the "Prisoner of Azkaban" movie, when the unknown wizard in the Leaky Cauldron is stirring his teacup with a finger and reading Stephen Hawkings' "A Brief History of Time". Also, this fic uses real, current scientific theories surrounding time-travel and universal particles, as well as JKR's canon information twisted to make this plot work. 
> 
> Author's Additional Notes: Title of this story comes from the great Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, in which he writes, "time is the longest distance between two places".
> 
> Title of this story comes from the great Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, in which he writes, "time is the longest distance between two places".
> 
> MUCHO thanks to my beta, Desiree (D-Irish/MalfoyMaiden), for her super-ultra kind offering to take on this monster fic at the 11th hour, and her excellent suggestions for making the story read better – THANK YOU SO MUCH, D!
> 
> A BIG-UBER thanks to the Mod, scifichick774, for hosting such a great party, being so understanding and kind, and for letting me play in her comm. I've enjoyed this opportunity, and look forward to next time!

******~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**1 June, 1991** _

_**The Granger Home, Lingfield, Surrey** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

The stranger had blue, twinkling eyes and a long, white beard. His jaunty cap was decorated with embroidered stars in silver thread, and his floor-length, magenta robes were done up the same.

Hermione liked him; this funny-looking old man named Dumbledore, who'd come to her home to tell her parents something important (something about her unique 'abilities', she was quite sure), but most especially, she was enchanted by the colour of his eyes. They reminded her of the _Glaucus atlanticus_ – her favourite marine mollusk, and the clusters of Brooklime that lined her mother's garden, and the nice man with the sad face who sometimes sat on the bench in the park where she played (he fed the ducks and smelled like a candy store, and had eyes so pale blue, they were almost white). She'd always wanted eyes that same shade – the colour of the sky. They reminded her of playful days, of endless possibilities, and of secrets.

Her own plain, mud-coloured eyes had always bored her; they were the most average of average, and if there was one thing Hermione did not like, it was being considered 'average' at anything – even something as trivial and unalterable as her physical features.

A chair scraped in the small dining area adjacent to the kitchen, where her parents were currently talking in low tones with their elderly caller, and Hermione quickly ducked down behind the couch, where she was eavesdropping, hoping not to get caught. She wondered what they were saying. Was it something bad? She'd been so careful lately, working hard to control her spontaneous telekinesis; she hadn't rattled a single pot in the house in over a year.

Frustrated with her inability to hear anything of substance, she crept forward, attempting to be stealthy. It was terribly rude to listen in on others' conversations, she knew, but insatiable curiosity had always been one of her more dominant personality traits and it was difficult to curb it, especially knowing the discussion in the next room involved her.

"You're sure?" her father asked, holding an old, worn letter in his hand. It looked dirty and rumpled, and the paper was a thick, old-world styled parchment, like what her grandmother liked to write on when she sent out her letters. "She's really going to… She's meant to… You're _quite_ sure?"

Dumbledore gave a somber nod. "I'm afraid there is no mistake. Your daughter has a great destiny before her, Mister and Missus Granger. The question is: will you allow it to unfold as it was meant to?"

Hermione frowned. She knew what 'destiny' was, and she didn't much believe in it, preferring to subscribe to the idea that everyone made their own decisions. The idea of some imaginary cosmic deity was weaving an inescapable web of every person's life seemed laughable to her.

Besides if she had a destiny, her parents couldn't stop it, even if they did protest, so why bother asking their permission at all? It seemed completely unnecessary.

Just then, Dumbledore glanced over at her, giving her a wink and a smile, as if he'd known all along just precisely where she was and what she was up to.

Caught snooping, Hermione sighed, stood up, and joined her parents and their visitor in the kitchen. If they were going to discuss her future, then she might as well be a part of it.

  


* * *

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**18 June, 1996** _

_**Ministry of Magic-Department of Mysteries, London** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Hermione assessed the line of Death Eaters to her right and left, noting that there were none behind their small group; _thank Merlin_. At least there was the chance for them to escape, so long as Harry kept talking and Lucius Malfoy kept his cronies at bay until the conversation was finished.

They'd been so easily lured into this trap, just as she'd suspected might happen given Harry's erratic behaviour this year, but her best friend had been adamant that he was coming here with or without anyone else, the stubborn boy, and she'd decided long ago never, ever to let Harry James Potter dive off cliffs without her there to be his suicide-prevention net. The boy had a death wish.

Fortunately, she'd already had _plenty_ of practice at getting Harry and her friends out of bad scrapes... although never one as dire as this, she had to admit.

Listening with half an ear to some shrill witch's mocking of Harry, Hermione focussed instead on considering defensive spells once the fighting began, and on recalling the way out of the purposefully disorienting and twisting labyrinth of the Department of Mysteries. Half a dozen hexes pulsed on her tongue, waiting to be unleashed at the proper moment, and although the wand light made it difficult to peer into the distant darkness, Hermione was confident that she remembered the correct path back towards the lifts, having memorized her steps to this point and kept her sense of direction, even underground.

From the corner of her eye she spotted Harry raise his wand, and mimicked him, tensing. When she heard Ginny being threatened, she stepped back and crowded in like a mother protecting her cub; they'd touch her friend over her dead body!

A lone Death Eater dared to inch forward from between the shelves to her right, his silver mask gleaming against her illuminated wand tip. She could see his eyes as clear as day – a blue-white that was vibrant and clear, steady and fixed on her alone. He took another step, then another, until he was standing a metre away. His wand was aimed at just over her left shoulder, she noticed, trained on Ginny like the others in his group. Hermione shifted a bit to block his aim and took a deep breath to clear her shaky nerves...

The strong, masculine scent of liquorice and cloves wafted past her nostrils.

Kretek. She recognised the smell, as her mother had once smoked the tobacco-spice blend, too. She recalled when she was younger the man who had fed the ducks in the park had also smelled like the stuff – candy sweet, with a tiny hint of masculinity, like Port wine. Kretek were a Muggle invention, though.

What would a Death Eater be doing with Muggle cigarettes?

Almost imperceptively, the lone Death Eater's gaze dropped to her lips and even through the holes in his hideous, metal disguise, the edges of his eyes crinkled upwards as if he were smiling under the mask – as if he were amused by her.

Hermione glared at him. The evil git was mocking her.

Just as the psycho witch to Hermione's left screamed something at Harry about 'shut your mouth', the Death Eater in front of her did something slimy and sneaky – something that made an odd, embarrassing moan escape her lips: he caressed her magical aura with his own with a whisper of an unknown spell and a gentle release of his will. The touch was silken fingers sliding against her naked, heated skin, soft and arousing. An electric spark of pure pleasure shot up and down Hermione's spine in response, making her shiver and causing her heart to accelerate.

Shaking at the unfamiliar feelings that coursed through her, and upset that such a spell even existed, Hermione bared her teeth at the man, angry that he would dare such a thing. _Pervert,_ she thought, casting her disdain at him across the space.

His answering chuckle was soft, but she heard it, even over the shattering of glass orbs very close to where she stood, as some mad Voldemort loyalist unleashed a spell. Fortunately, it was blocked from reaching its true target by someone else.

_Foolish... pay attention!_ They were in the middle of a fight for their lives, for Merlin's sake, and her inattentiveness could have just cost them everything!

Steeling her nerve, her wand arm went rigid once more, and she squared her shoulders, facing down the Death Eater in front of her. _When it starts, you're my first target,_ she let him know with a narrowing of her eyes, preparing a special Stupefication spell just for him. He acknowledged her challenge with a small nod... and another chuckle.

The rotten git was laughing at her.

  


* * *

  


The fine sand particles from all those broken hourglasses from the Time-Turner cabinet in the Time Room stung Hermione's nose as she beat feet through the bizarre dust cloud hot on Harry and Neville's heels, leaving behind one unconscious Death Eater–the one with the pretty blue eyes who had toyed with her earlier–lying by the ruined grandfather clock, and his partner, the squalling baby-headed Death Eater, to their fates.

As she ran, she hastily wiped at her face to get the burning and itching in her sinuses to stop, and noted blood staining her hand. Great, she had a nose bleed on top of everything else. _Just perfect!_ There was no time to stop and pinch her nose to staunch the flow, though, as two more Death Eaters appeared before them in a flash. She and her two friends instinctively ducked into a side office.

There was no other exit to the room, she immediately noticed. They were trapped. Maybe she could blow a hole through the back wall into some other office…

She turned to lock the door behind them, but was knocked back and off her feet by an unexpected _Impedimenta_ spell as the door was forced back open by two new Death Eaters. Fortunately, Hermione didn't fall back into anything too solid, as she'd been tossed against Neville. As a result, she was able to immediately roll over and magically Silence one of the wizards from shouting out their location to his companions.

Then, Harry was back in the fray, too, casting a Petrify spell that hit its mark.

She was just congratulating him on his good form, when she was struck in the chest by a non-verbal spell from the Death Eater she'd _Silence'd_. The spell had emitted a menacing purple flame that sank into her abdomen, going bone-deep. It short-circuited her nervous system in a blink, like turning off all the lights in her head at once.

"Oh!" was all she had time to exclaim before darkness rushed in on her from the sides, engulfing her in its embrace.


	2. Chapter 2

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**18 June, 1996** _

_**St. Mungo's Hospital, London** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Whether the strange dreams she suffered while slipping in and out of consciousness later that night while she was in the Emergency Room at St. Mungo's had been a result of the unknown curse cast upon her by the man Lucius Malfoy had referred to as 'Dolohov', or the result of the regime of potions stuffed down her throat by the Healers who fought to save her life, Hermione could not have said. The only thing she could attest to with certainty was that in her random moments of lucidity, she'd been aware that all five of her senses had become ultra-sensitive in the registering of sounds, sights, and smells. The tiniest noise, a sliver of light, a lingering scent upon someone's clothing had all been painful experiences.

She'd also recalled a particular moment when a Medi-Witch opened the door adjoining Hermione's room with the one next to hers, hurrying in with a tray loaded with potions. The witch had requested a private word with Hermione's Healer, drawing the man to the side…

 _"It's as you feared: the condition of the patient next door remains the same,"_ the witch had explained to her superior. _"We've tried every traditional remedy, but he remains comatose. It's as if... well, that he were somehow locked in a permanent Petrification spell, but doesn't react to any of the usual spell reversal efforts."_

They'd begun discussing alternative treatments regarding specialized curse-breaking for the injured man, and even the possibility of requesting from the Ministry the aid of an Unspeakable, if necessary, but Hermione had simply tuned out the rest of their conversation, all of her senses suddenly focussed on a particular scent drifting in through the open door at just that moment. It had been distinct and sharp – a liquorice aroma smoothly blended with that of sweet clove. She'd inhaled a deep lungful, recognising the Kretek scent from earlier that night...

Somewhere nearby, a clock had chimed the hour – twelve tolls, signalling midnight's arrival.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

The rolling train's luggage carriage was icebox cold. Her breath crystallized in the air as she exhaled, and her bare feet stung from the icy wooden floor under her heels. No wonder they allowed toads, bats, and other small familiars that weren't adapted to such extreme temperatures into the passenger compartment; they'd freeze to death in here otherwise!

She looked around, curious as to how she'd ended up on a train at all. Hadn't she just been in the hospital, flat on her back and seriously injured?

As she patted herself down and took inventory, she realised she was upright, without a single wound, wearing a thin hospital gown and no shoes – wandless and ill-dressed for the temperature, but very much alive and well.

There came the sound nearby of a deep inhale, as if someone were taking a drag off a cigarette, and then an exhale, followed by a soft cloud of liquorice and clove scented smoke wafting over her.

"Well, well, what have we here?" Footsteps approached. "You lost, little bird?"

"I'm not sure," she admitted, waving off the fumes. "I might be."

Blinking furiously against the sting of tobacco smoke, she looked up… and fell into a pair of startling blue eyes.

Their colour wasn't the teal-blue of a Caribbean ocean, like Charlie Weasley's eyes, nor did they match the indigo irises of Lavender Brown, nor did they contain the incandescence of a rich sapphire's heart, like Ron's gaze. No, these eyes were a rare shade of blue that seemed trapped between seasons, capturing both the bright chill of early spring skies and the diamond white of winter's snows. They were utterly beguiling – and vaguely familiar, although she couldn't place where she'd seen them before.

"Anyone home?" the wizard before her joked, waving a hand in front of her face.

"S-sorry?" she stammered, recovering from her shock and glancing around. "I'm... not quite sure what I'm doing here."

The young wizard–a Slytherin, going by the insignia and colours on his school robes–stepped closer. "Are you ill? Do you need help?" he asked, giving her the once over, his brows furrowing. "Nice assets, by the way." He smirked and made a crude gesture with his cupped hands, referring to her unbound breasts and their embarrassingly erect nipples.

Scandalised that a complete stranger would make such an inappropriate comment, Hermione gasped and crossed her arms over her chest to hide her humiliation. "Pervert, don't look!" she chided him. "And no, I'm not ill. I just got lost, I think," she replied, glancing around again, confused. "Although, I'm not quite sure how that's possible. I closed my eyes for only a moment, and then I was... here."

A warm current of air blew past her exposed neck as the boy let out a deep sigh and scratched at his left forearm over the cotton of his uniform's shirt. "You sure you're not a run-away from the Janus Thickley Ward, 'cause you sound as if you're suffering memory loss."

What could she say? She had no idea how she'd gotten here, or why she was still dressed in her hospital gown. _Had_ she run away from the hospital, and somehow forgotten all about the how and why of the matter? Memory Charms were notoriously slippery, and someone could have used one on her – but for what purpose, and who would have cast such a thing upon her?

She took a good, long look at her companion then, curious as to who he might really be. He was about her age, thin and tall; she had to bend her neck back to look him in the eye, so she was guessing he was over six feet. He sported a Slytherin winter school uniform, that looked to be expertly cut of the finest wool and well-tailored, and his shoes were equally as expensive. His chestnut-brown hair was short on the back and sides, and stylishly cut to appear casual and rakish. His fringe was short, swept off to the side to hide a small scar near his temple that she could just spy from this angle. He had a strong chin and jaw, and his nose was long and straight. He also had a sweet dimple on his left cheek and a set of full, sexy lips. Ginny would call them lips a girl could kiss for hours...

What was she thinking? This was neither the time nor the place for such foolishness - and it was _wholly_ not like her to consider such a thing about a complete stranger as well. Something was very wrong, indeed.

"It's too early to head for Hogwarts on the Express, isn't it?" she asked, confused as to why her companion would be dressed in his winter uniform and going back to school in the middle of summer.

He chuckled. "Wrong train, luv. This is the passenger train between the school and London. We've just pulled out of the station, in fact."

She frowned. "Kings Cross?"

He shook his head. "Hogsmeade. We're heading back to the city."

Hermione took a good, long look at the young man, startled by his implication. "Are you... _are you_ _running away from school?!"_

The thought was scandalizing!

Reaching into his pocket, the Slytherin pulled out a pack of Kretek cigs and offered one to Hermione. She refused it with a single shake of her head and a crinkling of her nose. _Foul things, cigarettes._ He gave her a challenging smile and shook the pack at her again. "You sure?" When she rejected it a second time, he put it back in his inner robe pocket, undaunted by her rejection. "Not one for breaking the rules or walking the wild side, are you? Well, then you're in the wrong company, luv." He pointed a thumb at himself. "I'm all about the bad. And yeah, I'm dropping school and never going back. Who needs it when you come from money?"

"But you can't!" she argued, horrified to her core at such an idea. "Education is important! It's one of the most essential foundations of a person's life! How do you plan to get a job and support yourself and a family someday without an accreditation? Besides, don't you want to be a productive member of society – to throw off oppression and help build a better world?"

There was a moment's pause as the stranger absorbed what she'd said... and then he began laughing. He hooted and hollered with raucous delight, as if he couldn't believe anyone could be so idealistic. Personally, Hermione didn't find the situation to be the least bit funny, and was rather annoyed that this stranger was poking fun at her ideas. "Stop," she growled, lightly shoving his shoulder. "It's not funny. The world _does_ need to change. It's become an awful place. Someone needs to stand up for what's right. I meant that."

"I know you did! You're a regular Emmeline Pankhurst, aren't you?"

Hermione raised an eyebrow at that. How on Earth did a wizard–most likely a pure-blood, given he was wearing Slytherin colours–know of one of Muggle Britain's most famous women suffragettes?

"I'm not laughing at that, though. I'm amused by the bit about a job. Didn't you hear me? I'm filthy, stinking rich!" he continued, wiping the tears of hilarity from his eyes. "I'll never have to work a day in my life. As for what I plan to do with said life-" He reached out and stroked across the back of her hand with a finger, his earlier humour replaced with a warm, daring suggestiveness. "I've enough learned skills and natural talent to get by. Care for a demonstration?"

Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes, recognising his game. She'd been teased similarly by Theodore Nott just last year. The boy had walked away from that experience with hair that had writhed on his head like snakes for three days, and not even Poppy had known the counter-curse (it had been old magic she'd discovered in a book on the subject in the library - a variation on the Medusa Hex). Needless to say, Nott had learned his place and he'd never tried to get fresh with her again. "Will you be serious?" she insisted, and moved her hand out of reach, placing it behind her back. It tingled where he'd touched her, and _not_ in a bad, creepy way. "You shouldn't drop-out. You can't get back these years if you waste them on frivolity. What you learn in school will last you a lifetime, while fun-" She touched the square-shaped outline of the Kretek box in his left-chest pocket with her other hand. "-is fleeting. It's a brief fling. Knowledge is forever."

He snickered. "Unless you end up with dementia at a ripe, old age - or you're hit with a Memory Charm." He tossed her a glance that let her know their thoughts were on the same wavelength in terms of her odd appearance on the train.

"Yes, there is that." She considered his implication. "Do you really think that's a possibility? A Memory Charm, I mean."

"Anything's possible with magic... or hadn't you heard?"

Hermione chuckled, amused by this anomalous, quick-witted young man. Despite (or perhaps because of) his unfortunate House affiliation, he reeled her in with an easy charm that was difficult to resist. "I don't even know you and I can tell you're the inveterate type," she pronounced.

"It's one of those innate talents I was speaking of earlier, luv." He threw her a saucy smirk and stepped closer, creating a bubble of intimacy around them. "Do you have any special skills? Anything you'd care to share?" His tone was a sultry, low murmur that danced across her skin as he moved into her private space, pressing them together. His body radiated heat and she was once more overwhelmed by the sugar-sweet scent of his cigarettes. Oddly, it enticed her.

Backing up to put some distance between them, to clear her head, she found her shoulders pressed into the cool, metal frame of the train car instead. Through the thin cotton of her shift, the chill pervaded, making her shiver.

Never in her life had she felt such a strong arousal for a boy. Viktor had been a gentle, quiet giant, never pressing her for any physical intimacy outside of dancing with him during the Yule Ball. Consequently, there had been no heat between them, only a warm fondness, similar to how Hermione felt about Harry or Neville or Fred and George. Ron... well, he was clueless, wasn't he? The discovery of her 'girly-ness' was a recent thing for him, but he was still oblivious as to seeing her as anything outside his friend and occasional study partner. The dangerously attractive wizard before her, however, clearly viewed her in a sexual manner. It was evident in the way his eyes glimmered as he looked upon her, and by his body language. He seemed as drawn to her as she was to him.

Was this what _real_ chemistry between two people felt like?

Licking her lips, she zeroed in on his, wondering what those full, pillowy lips would feel like...

Beckoned forward, the boy closed the distance between them again. This time, his thighs pressed in tight against hers, and his chest met the barrier of her unbound breasts through her spare covering. His hands pressed into the wall at either side, and he leaned in. "The baggage car is always cold," he informed her, clearly feeling her quivering against him, "but there are ways to warm up without spells, if you're game."

"I-It is a little c-cold," she replied. That wasn't the reason for her body's trembling though, and they both knew it.

Feet frozen in place and eyes firmly locked on the stranger's lowering mouth, Hermione's mind was a whirl of thoughts: Was any of this real, or was this all some bizarre imagination her mind had conjured to while away the time while she remained unconscious in the hospital? She hadn't remembered Disapparating to this place or taking a Portkey here, and there was absolutely no way she'd ever have gotten on a broom and flown here, either. So, how exactly had she ended up in the back of a steam locomotive's freight bogie, getting slightly jostled around by the uneven motion of the several-ton rolling machine under her feet, and about to snog a boy she didn't even know?

As the tip of his nose brushed her cheek, he paused. "How is this happening?" he whispered, staring at her through a half-lidded gaze. "Why can't I stop it?"

"I don't know," she whispered back, feeling that same strange compulsion for them to come together as well, "but I don't want you to."

Yes, this absolutely _had_ to all be in her head, because there was a complete lack of logic and rationality going on at the moment. For starters, she wasn't fighting him off; her sluggish limbs wouldn't have obeyed that command even if she'd thought to give it. Secondly, she found she didn't _want_ to fight him off. Her curiosity had, once more, gotten the better of her. Now she wanted to determine if this was, in fact, all make-believe in her head or not, and what better way to test it than to see how real it all felt. Third, she wanted to know what lips that smooth and plump would feel like.

When the kiss finally happened it was brief, but it definitely didn't feel like a drug-induced daydream kiss. It felt very solid and real. When he pulled away and she licked her bottom lip, she tasted liquorice and sweet cloves.

"Your first kiss?" he asked in a gentle whisper.

Hermione gave a small nod.

His answering smile was slow, wicked, and sexy. "I like that. I've never had a girl's first kiss before. Want another?"

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and Merlin help her, she nodded again.

When he swooped back in, he slipped his warm tongue between her lips in a slick, quick move. Hermione jerked in response, stiffening up.

"Relax," he encouraged, pressing tiny nips and licks.

Deciding on the spot that, yes, this was definitely a lovely drug-induced delirium, as there was absolutely no way a young man this attractive would come on to her this strong in real life, Hermione decided to fling caution to the wind and enjoy it. How often did she have a naughty dream, anyway? Maybe once or twice a month over the last year, since she'd really started crushing bad on Ron...

Ron!

Putting a hand between them, she pushed against a solid, well-muscled chest. "Wait. Stop!"

Her fantasy boy did as she asked without pause. "What's wrong?"

She took a deep, shaky breath, trying to regain her rationality. "Look, you're very lovely for a dream, but–"

"A dream?" he interrupted, his brow lowering in confusion. "Is that what this is? Am I asleep back here in the car and dreaming you?" A chilled space opened between them as he stepped away from her, scratching again at his left forearm. "I've been having very vivid nightmares lately, yeah, but..." He truly seemed thrown by her words. "If this is a dream, it's the first nice one I've had in a long time."

Hermione felt her cheeks heat. "Yes, well, for me as well. Mostly, my dreams are topsy-turvy. I feel quite like Alice tumbling down the rabbit-hole right now, and it's most likely because of those blasted potions they're giving me for the pain."

Her companion moved back a step, then another, his expression suddenly wary. "That doesn't sound like something any dream girl of mine might say. Who are you? How did you get here? Why come to me now, when I needed this?"

"Needed what?" she asked, bewildered by the suspicion he now cast her way.

His eyes narrowed and the corner of his lips twisted into an ugly snarl. "Who the bloody hell are you? Are you spying on me?"

Hermione glanced around for the car's exit, confused and growing more frightened by the moment. What _had_ she been doing? She was alone with a strange man who wore Slytherin colours, and was wandless and barely dressed – not a safe combination, to be sure. "Why on earth would I do that?" she reasoned, all the while seeking the door out. "I don't know who you are, and I don't know where I am, or even how I got here in the first place!"

All it took was a moment looking away, and when she glanced back, his wand was pointed at her. "Dumbledore sent you, didn't he? The nosy bastard!" His hand shook with one part anger, three parts fear. "Tell him my answer is still the same – I won't turn on my brother! I'll save him my own way! I don't need anyone else's help, and I definitely don't need the old codger to send me some pretty, little virginal witch to seduce me to his side, either."

Now her anger was sparked. Unfortunately, before she could open her mouth to respond, two things happened simultaneously: the train gave a vicious jolt, causing both Hermione and the strange wizard to stagger, and darkness crept in from the sides of her vision, moving fast to cut-off her consciousness. The best she could manage was a tiny cry of surprise as everything went dark again.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

The ceiling was completely unfamiliar. It wasn't the grey, worn stone of Gryffindor tower's dorms or the beige stone of its hospital wing, or the warm oak slats of the Burrow, or the pale blue of her own bedroom back at her parent's home in Surrey. It was perfectly flat from one end to the other, monotone white in colour, and dreadfully dull, lacking of any sort of a personality.

Stiff with pain, she slowly turned her head from side to side, hoping to find something about the rest of the room that might spark a memory. There was nothing untoward to be found in the shadows, and all was as quiet as a church during off-hours. The room was just as benign: four white walls with lemon-yellow trim, two chairs for visitors and a bedside table that was empty, a single window with drawn curtains, the pale light of dawn peeking through the cracks, a closed door to her left that she somehow knew led to a room with a comatose man, and another door to her right that led out into what appeared to be a hallway. She was in a bed with a soft pillow under her head, and starched, white sheets and a dark green blanket to keep her warm. The air smelled too clean, too, as if it had been well-sanitized.

A witch in lime-green robes walked by her open door, her head bent over a clipboard, and Hermione suddenly knew exactly where she was: St. Mungo's, where she'd been brought after the fiasco at the Ministry. She'd survived, although she recalled being badly injured in the fighting.

The events on the train had all been a potion-induced dream, then, just as she'd suspected.

"Oh," she whispered, disappointed. She'd really thought...

Slowly things came back to her, albeit as disjointed flashes of memory:

_The Department of Mysteries… tiny sand particles floating in the air and coating her tongue... Her blood so bright on the back of her pale, shaking hand... a purple flame burning through her... a Healer in lime-green robes bending over her, telling her everything it will be all right as a foul tasting potion is shoved down her throat... The enticing scent of liquorice and cloves... her toes feeling like prickly icicles... a kiss that makes her heart pound..._

_"Your first kiss? I like that. I've never had a girl's first kiss before."_

It had never happened. Her dream boy didn't exist and there had been no first kiss. He'd been nothing more than a hallucination brought on by a cocktail of pain and healing potions.

Hot tears slipped down the sides of her face, and suddenly she was sobbing as she hadn't since that first Halloween at Hogwarts, when she'd hidden out in the girl's loo. The ruckus brought a Healer running into her room from down the hall.

"Are you in pain, my dear?" the kindly witch asked.

Hermione nodded. She was in pain, but not from the memories of her terrifying ordeal at the Ministry, or because of the awful curse cast upon her, or even because she knew she'd be forced to take more potions to calm down in a moment. No, it was because of the hollow sensation she now felt in her chest, and the way her heart seemed only to partially function.

She hurt because she felt as if she'd left a piece of herself behind in the dream world, in the hands of an imaginary boy.


	3. Chapter 3

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**19 September, 1996** _

_**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

The next time Hermione experienced an odd displacement was the night of her seventeenth birthday, a few months later.

Harry, Ron, and Ginny had thrown her a bash in Gryffindor's common room. With Dobby's help, there had been a huge cake and the pumpkin juice had freely flowed. Practically every one of her Housemates was in attendance. The pile of presents from her friends had been astounding.

"Well, you had a bad summer," Ron sheepishly stated when she'd cornered her three best friends and asked them why they'd gone to such lengths for her.

"And it's an important day, 'Mione," Harry pressed, elbowing Ron for his tactlessness. "You're an adult now, at least according to the Ministry."

Ginny nodded. "No more age restrictions on your magic. Lucky ducky!"

Hermione had been moved to tears. Her friends had pulled out all the stops to help her celebrate such an important milestone and to help make up for the fact that she'd spent the majority of the summer in a hospital bed, drinking foul tasting potions to get over Dolohov's Curse. "Thank you so much. It's the best birthday yet!"

They'd partied late into the night, but with classes the next day, eventually the fun was called to an end around midnight. After once again thanking her friends, she'd dragged her tired body and her haul of presents up the stairs to her dorm room. Setting her gifts away, and changing into her winter pyjamas, she'd climbed into her bed and set her wand to buzz her awake at her usual hour.

She'd been staring up at the red velvet canopy draped over her bed, listening to her roommates, Lavender, Susan, and Parvati talking in quiet whispers as they'd readied themselves for bed. The trio had snuck out earlier for a smoke, their newly acquired habit this year, and had just come back in stinking of sweet wizard's tobacco. It had reminded Hermione briefly of that cheeky Death Eater in the Department of Mysteries who had smelled of Kretek...

Without warning, the room went dark.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

The potions classroom was less cold than the train carriage had been, but it was still in the dungeon and therefore, by definition, chilly. It also smelled faintly of Baneberry and burnt Asphodel. Overriding the foul smell, however, was that same scent of liquorice and sweet cloves that she'd recognized from her first fugue.

"Well, at least the pyjamas are a step-up from the johnnies."

Before she turned to face him, she knew exactly who her mystery speaker would be. "You came back to school, I see," she pronounced with a touch of smugness as she spun on her heel.

There was a heavy, resigned sigh, and then, "Your influence over me in that respect is disconcerting, I'll admit, but your reason prevailed." He began winding his way towards her across the room with a lazy gait. He had his hands in his pockets and a jaunty smirk on his face. "I nearly froze my arse off on a broom to get back, but... I hope you're satisfied with the results."

"Very," she declared, crossing her arms over her unbound breasts, not wanting any sort of commentary this time about them. "Now, before we begin, let me just set something straight: I am no spy. No one sent me here, as far as I can tell. In fact, I wondered if _you're_ not somehow summoning me here with a charm or a magical item."

He shrugged. "Neither, as far as I'm aware, but you're here again, so I'll say, 'good show for me!' whatever I'm doing." He approached her cautiously, but didn't stop until they were nearly toe-to-toe. With an assessing gaze, he took her in from head to heel. His grin widened. "You do have a habit of not dressing for the occasion, luv."

"I was dressed properly for bed."

"At this time of the day?" he interrupted, frowning.

"Day? It's past midnight on a school night."

Her Slytherin companion tweaked an eyebrow at her in curiosity, and raised his right wrist, shaking an expensive looking timepiece out from under his high-quality cotton shirt sleeve, checking it. "No, it's twenty-five past twelve in the afternoon on a Saturday. You must have partied too much last night and slept in."

Hermione opened her mouth to retort that she couldn't have slept through all of Friday, regardless of the partying she'd done the night before, because someone would have come to find out why she'd skipped classes. However, her partner's stomach gave out a rousing growl just then, and the raucous sound momentarily shocked her. Her eyes dropped to his belly, just as he put a hand over it.

"Speaking of, it's time for lunch," he grinned, a slight blush tinting his cheeks. He absently scratched at his left forearm. "Care to sneak into the kitchens with me for a bite?"

His flippant cheek could really get on her nerves if she'd let it. "I don't have time for that! I need to find out how I got into the Potions Lab from my dormitory, and to determine why I've seemed to have lost a day!" She stared at the smooth, worn stone beneath her bare feet, attempting to concentrate on the facts at her command, but her head felt slightly woollen, as if she'd slept too long. "It doesn't make any sense! I don't recall taking any Sleeping Draughts, or falling and hitting my head. I remember lying in my bed, Lavender whispering to Parvati and Susan about boys, as usual. They'd smelled of cigarette smoke, and I was about to get up to reprimand them for breaking rules, but then... everything went dark." She ran a hand through her hair, pulling out a few knots. "Oh, this simply must be a dream! Either that, or magic is involved!"

So caught up in her attempts to turn-over information and postulate a few theories on her current circumstance, it came as a complete surprise to her when the young man's hands were quite suddenly on her waist. With an unexpected strength, he had her up in the air, and then her bum planted on a stool. He shoved her legs apart with a knee and settled his body between her thighs. With wide eyes, Hermione stared up in the handsome face of the young man she'd snogged during her last fantasy trip to Wonderland.

"What do you think you're–?" she began to demand, only to be cut off when his warm lips covered hers.

Merlin, could this boy kiss! His mouth was a playful tease, nibbling, licking, and stroking with a velvety expertise. He coaxed her to give in and give back, and to forget that anything outside of him and this kiss existed.

As his hands tightened upon her waist, his mouth moved over hers with both a barely-restrained hunger and a considerate gentleness at the same time. Thoughts fluttered from her mind, as the heat and taste and scent of him pervaded her senses, taking her over. With a whimper, she opened her mouth and touched her tongue to his. Her mystery boy groaned his approval, and her body melted into his. Against the centre of her femininity, through the cotton of her pyjamas and the wool of his slacks, she felt the iron-hard press of his flesh indicating the state of his arousal. "Mmmm," he growled around the kiss, his hands shifting, thrusting through her curly hair and holding on tight. "This is better than worrying, yeah?" he whispered as he delved in for more.

"I-It's madness," she stammered, gripping onto his shoulders for purchase. "This isn't going to solve anything!"

He kissed the arguments right from her mouth, one after another, until she was out of breath, trembling on the edge of sanity, and so hot and needy, she felt flushed.

"Please, we have to stop," she moaned, even as she accepted his tongue deep into her mouth, twining her own around it. Her fingers thrust into his hair and held onto the soft, short strands. It was impossible to push him away. Some force outside herself pulled her back for more and more, magnetizing her into his arms.

Her Slytherin dream-boy seemed as helpless as she to bring them to a halt. "Can't stop," he murmured around claiming her lips. "God, what are you doing to me? Why can't I stop?"

His mouth trailed a hot path over her jaw, and down her throat. He latched onto her pulse and Hermione's body jerked against his as electric current swarmed through her veins. "We... we don't even know each other!" she maintained. "This can't be real!"

Her partner quite suddenly paused and tore his mouth away. His hard, panting breath burned like fire against her cheeks as he pressed his forehead to hers. "You're right. This has to be a dream. I'm asleep at the bench, exhausted from working all night on this blasted potion that _he_ wants me to make." His lashes fluttered, as if he were waking from a nightmare. "Yeah, this is a dream, because there's no way a pure and sweet girl like you really exists for someone like me." He slowly let her go, stepping back. His whole body trembled, as if he were both afraid and cold to the core, and he rubbed over his left forearm again, gripping it as if it were in pain. "Not anymore."

As if his words sapped the magic out of the room, darkness crept along the sides of Hermione's vision, quickly moving towards the centre.

"What's happening?" she asked, reaching out for him. "Wait!"

Everything went dark.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

Her wand was buzzing on the small side table next to her bed, warning her that it was six o'clock and time to rise and shine. Red velvet curtains loomed above her, draped over the four wooden posters like a banner.

She'd been right. Her mystery Slytherin _was_ just a dream. He was all in her head.

A wave of intense, overpowering sorrow inexplicably swept over her with a suddenness that stunned her. Her heart gave a funny hitch, and that hollow feeling returned in her chest, creating a dull ache behind her ribs. With a shaky hand, she wiped at her cheeks, staring at her wet fingertips in confusion.

Why was she crying, for Merlin's sake? Why did she have the desire to curl up into a ball in her bed and simply lay there all day long, moping and weepy? There was no logical reason for it. This wasn't like her at all!

She gave the matter a bit of thought, and remembered that her period was due to come this week. Perhaps her emotional overload was simply a case of PMS? It wouldn't be the first time she'd turned into a lunatic during that time of the month.

Yes, surely pre-menstrual syndrome was amplifying her hormone levels, leading to an increase in her libido, hence the sexually-charged dream she'd just experienced. Her depression in the aftermath, after waking was easily explained as a consequence of stress from her intensified school load, Ron's continuing disinterest, and her personal sexual frustration.

 _That_ was a much more logical explanation than instantaneous teleportation without the aid of a magical or science fiction-y device.

Goodness, she felt silly for believing otherwise. After all, she'd been the one to tell Harry when he'd confronted her on his theory that Malfoy was a Death Eater at the start of term that when someone claimed to see a unicorn, nine times out of ten, it was just a horse wearing a funny hat. Such was the case with her fantastical Slytherin and her trip through the Wonderland of her dreams – they were imaginary, and didn't exist except in her own mind.


	4. Chapter 4

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**2 November, 1996** _

_**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

The night Ron and Lavender snogged for the first time in the Gryffindor common room after their Quidditch team won a match, Hermione experienced her third jump into the rabbit's hole.

It was November, and cold in the quiet area of the unused dormitory space in her House tower. Harry had just left her, at her request, after she'd cried her eyes out on his shoulder, and all was blissfully quiet, as she was alone on this level. As she sat on the bottom step of the stairwell, the feathered evidence of her jealousy-fuelled _Avis Oppugno_ spell still lying about the floor near her feet, she leaned her head in her hands and took a shuddering breath... and smelled burnt tobacco.

As she moved a foot she spotted the culprit: the butt of an old wizard's cigarette – probably one of Susan's, as she was the only one still smoking of her friends. Hermione magically vanished the crushed evidence with a wave of her wand, too heart-sore to confront anyone for rule infractions at the moment – especially after her own in sending that hex at Ron.

The scent of tobacco lingered, however, reminding her of her mystery Slytherin...

She leaned her head against the rotunda's wall.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

She was standing in the doorway of a dormitory room. A lone, burning candle provided the only light.

"You're back!"

A young man sat up from lying prone upon a bed decked out in dark green and black bed coverings. His face was shadowed, but his crisp, white dress shirt was a beacon in the darkness, especially as it hurriedly drew towards her. She knew the instant he stepped closer who he was by the fine cut of his clothing and as the unmistakable scent of liquorice and sweet cloves that assaulted her nose once more.

Turning his head to the left, her mystery Slytherin blew out a trail of cigarette smoke over his shoulder, dropped the butt onto the stone floor at his feet, and crushed it under his heel. Hermione watched the bright orange cinder fall and go out.

"I'm dreaming again," they both said at the same exact time.

"Right," he chuckled, "but saying we're not, how did you get in here this time? No outsider has ever come into Slytherin's common room or its dorms, or so the Bloody Baron contends."

Hermione glanced around. "I don't know! I certainly didn't walk down here. This _must_ be a dream – maybe one we're sharing by some unknown magical means, because nothing else makes sense! I was on the stairs just a second ago."

Her beau stepped closer as Hermione summoned a light spell to the end of her wand and held it up between them. Once more, she was rendered speechless by this young man's beauty. His eyes seemed to beckon her, and those lips! Godric, help her, but she couldn't help her eyes lingering on them and remembering how they'd felt.

"At least you're dressed in day clothing this time," he said, looking her up and down. "Strange, though. This is the third time you've come to me when I've thought of you and needed..." He trailed off, obviously hesitant to finish the sentence aloud, but it was clear that whatever he'd been about to admit bothered him. His frown was pronounced, and his brows lowered in consternation. He absently scratched at his left forearm, too.

"Needed what?"

Her question jarred him. By the way he glanced up at her, both with automatic suspicion and with a hungry desire, Hermione knew that someday her insatiable curiosity was going to get her into really, big trouble.

"A good shag," he pronounced, tossing her a rather naughty smirk.

Hermione huffed and rolled her eyes. This was the kind of crude stupidity she regularly dodged from Malfoy and his friends whenever Harry and Ron weren't around. Usually, however, it was followed up by some sort of unoriginal 'Mudblood' comment.

"Very mature. I'm not sleeping with you. I don't even know you. Be serious."

Before she could move to check him, he was in her face. "Oh, but I am, sweet girl. I'm as serious as an Unforgivable." His hot breath stroked across her cheek as he tilted his head to bring his mouth to her ear. "I need a soft touch right now. I'm on edge, you see." His hands caressed down the side of her body, following her curves. "And if this is all a dream, I don't see a problem with taking whatever I want now, as there will be no real world repercussions later."

Her heart tripling in speed, Hermione pushed against his chest. "Get off me," she growled. "Even if this is only in my head, I won't let you force yourself on me."

He didn't budge, but he didn't push for more either. His forehead rested against her temple as he let out a small sigh. "Just... tell me who you are," he requested in a strangely gentle tone. "After the train, I looked for you in every House here at school, but I couldn't find you. After our time in the lab, I asked everyone I knew about you, hoping someone would recognize your description. They all think I'm either mad or making you up. Am I?"

His body was so hard against hers, all strong muscle, despite his lean frame. He fit into her softer curves like lock and key, especially his thickening erection, as it pressed into her belly. The sensation made her knees tremble. The intoxicating scent of liquorice and sweet cloves clung to him, drawing her in. She reached out to grab his hips, holding on for purchase, and he groaned, sliding his arms about her waist to pull her in tight.

"Please tell me that even if I'm dreaming you, that you exist for real somewhere out in the world," he whispered the plea. "It's the only thing that's kept me from... I was going to kill myself. That day we met on the train, I was going to London, to the Leaky to Floo home, so I could die in my own bed after drinking poison. I thought it was the only way to escape my fate. Then, you showed up that night in your skimpy, little johnnies and we kissed, and... You changed my mind about everything. I couldn't go through with it, I came back to school. I had to find you after that. So, just tell me that you're real. I won't care if Dumbledore sent you. I just need to know!"

Heart trembling to maintain its distance, Hermione lowered her head, pressing her face into the cradle of his shoulder. "I'm real. No one sent me," she admitted. "I don't know how I got here or why. I just... am. I'm still not convinced that _I'm_ not dreaming _you_ up somehow, though. You're here every time I've felt a little lonely, too, so that has to mean something, right?"

"Lonely. Yes, that's right," he agreed. "Whenever I've felt at my worst, like I'm drowning and holding my breath, you come, and I can breathe again for a little while."

She shuddered, his words resonating deeply within her. "It's the same for me."

"Sweet girl, what are you doing to me?" he whispered into her ear. He tilted her chin up with a finger, and captured her mouth in another searing kiss that curled her toes and had her fingernails scoring his waist through his shirt. Hesitant though she was at first to return his kiss, very quickly she felt consumed by it. His spicy scent pervaded her nose, his dark taste addicted her, and his touch felt curiously right. Again, she wondered what was happening and why? Why had she come back to this wizard's side, and why were they seemingly drawn to each other in this fashion?

Magic had to be responsible, as there was no other explanation. Either they were magically dreaming of each other, or she was being magically transported to wherever this boy was for an unknown reason, and compelled to want this sort of physical response with him. Nothing else made sense.

Before she could delve too deeply into her thoughts, with an easy pull, her partner lifted her in his arms. He turned them both, and headed towards his bed with a quick stride. The ride was a dizzying blur, especially with his mouth teasing hers to distraction.

"Definitely need you," he whispered around sensuous pulls of lips. "Need this."

When he lay her down on the soft bedspread and came over her, Hermione felt a slight panic, but her companion quelled it with another series of hot, soliciting kisses. His knees nudged her legs apart with firm intent, and his hips settled into the cradle of her thighs without resistance. There was no mistaking his arousal, as it came into contact with her core.

Every logical and smart protest in Hermione's head quite deserted her as her partner thoroughly set about seducing her senses. All that seemed to matter in the moment was what he was doing to her with his expert, bold touches and technique. Tricky fingers slipped under her jumper, skimming over her belly and ribs, and she found his palms to be warm, his hands as skilled as he'd previously bragged. Smoothing over the cups of her breasts, he thumbed her nipples through her bra, and swallowed the gasp that escaped her lips at such an unexpected touch.

She should stop this. It was going too far, too fast. She didn't even know his name, for Godric's sake!

He lightly rolled both nipples between his fingers while twining his tongue around hers, luring her further into his intended seduction. His pelvis ground against hers, and his hips moved in an instinctual rhythm that induced her to rub back, creating greater friction. They both revelled in the feeling, gasping and moaning around greedy, clashing lips and tongues. The pressure built in her lower body, expanding, persistent. There was a growing desperation to experience more of everything; it became a fever that clawed at her sanity, almost unbearable in its intensity and unable to be resisted.

Shifting the cotton of her bra aside, pinning it under the weight of her breasts, her would-be lover smoothed his hands and fingers over her naked skin, giving her the stimulation she longed for. Hermione's breath hitched as he lightly pinched the tiny, hard points, drawing them out from her body with gentle tugging. Her back arched and she cried out. The groan that escaped his throat and the increasing hardness rubbing against her jeans told her how very much he liked her reaction.

He teased her until she was near to madness, and then with great reluctance, he pulled his mouth from hers. "You've really never done this before?"

Barely, she had the mind to shake her head.

"Shit," he swore on a deep exhale. "I want you. I _really_ want you." His hands moved off her breasts and down her body, to grip her bare waist and he leaned back. "Just tell me to stop. Tell me right now, because so help me, sweet girl, if you don't, I'll fuck away your virginity tonight."

Now that there was a bit of room to breathe and think, Hermione's rationality returned. With wide eyes and panting breath, she pushed on his shoulders in a silent demand to be let up. "Oh, God," she hissed with shame. "Stop!" She dislodged his hands from her flesh and pushed him to his knees on the bed. "If... if this isn't a dream, then you've done something to me – a spell or a potion or something, because... I don't _do_ things like this!"

In the glow of the candle, his eyes lost their glaze of passion and the frown returned. "If I've used magic upon you, then whatever it is, I've done it to myself, too."

"Let me up this instant," she demanded, shoving against him again to make enough room for her to wiggle out from underneath his bigger body. "Let me go!"

He did as asked without hesitation, rolling off of her and sitting on the edge of the mattress, bracing his hands on his knees. He appeared as angry and confused as she was. Hermione practically jumped off the bed, only then realizing that her wand was on the floor near the door where she'd dropped it earlier. She hurried over to it, picking it up and instantly feeling the familiar strength of its bond to her. With magic back under her command, her courage plucked up as well. "Listen, I demand to know who you are, and what you know about me being here." She turned on him, pointing her wand in his direction. "Now, if you please."

 _"Lumos,"_ her companion cast, summoning illumination from his wand. The brilliant flare of white-blue light lit up the space between them again. "I asked you first, if you'll recall," he pointed out in an icy tone.

She _tsk'd_ , knowing she'd have to throw him some sort of a bone to get something in return. "Hermione. My name is Hermione. Now tone down the light, if you don't mind. You put too much into it and it's a bit blinding."

The ball of light was sent up towards the ceiling, far enough away for its brilliance to dim a bit and for her to meet his gaze without having to blink. The problem was, now that there was proper light to see by, everything was going dark again, especially around the edges of her vision.

"Oh no, not now!" she cried is despair, gripping the sides of her head. "Please, not yet!"

The darkness rushed in despite her protests.

The last glimpse she had of her wizard was his alarmed expression as he reached for her, as if he were desperate to grab hold of her and keep her with him...

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

She was leaning against the stairwell in Gryffindor tower, back where she'd started. Had she fallen asleep on the stairs and dreamed the whole thing again? Yellow bird feathers blew past her trainers, to gather in the shadowy corners of the corridor, making a new home with the dust devils.

She felt as if she were going insane. These blackouts and hallucinations just _had_ to be some sort of unexpected side-effect of Dolohov's curse. After all, the dreams had begun only after she'd been hit with that evil Death Eater's spell.

What if that was it? What if all of this was part of the curse that nasty Death Eater had cast upon her?

Fighting off the familiar bout of depression, wiping the tears from her cheeks where they fell, she determined she was going to write to St. Mungo's tomorrow and ask them all they knew about the curse the Death Eater had cast upon her. Perhaps the answer would shed some light on her bizarre delusions.


	5. Chapter 5

_**~.~.~.~.~.~** _

_**November, 1996 – June, 1997** _

_**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

After her third inexplicable incident and a return letter from St. Mungo's outlining Dolohov's Curse and its side-effects, Hermione began researching her affliction, assuming magic was involved. She spent months in between classes and prefect duties (and listening to Harry's increasingly paranoid ideas that Malfoy was up to no good) trying to find any possible explanation for her odd black-outs.

Unfortunately, she came up with nothing. The curse Dolohov had cast at her was a type of dark magic that solidified one's organs. Its effects lingered for weeks, but once it had run its course and dissipated, it was supposed to have no secondary consequences. Further, there was no potion and no known spell in any of the standard books that spoke of the type of Disapparition she was experiencing. The best she could manage were Muggle theoretical physic books on Space-Time and String Theories, but those were mere hypothetical possibilities mapped out by mathematics. Although they gave her a solid understanding of particle physics and how the universe was formed and moved, and how time operated within the multi-verse, they couldn't answer her most important questions, specifically what was causing the bizarre shifting about, how did the Slytherin boy fit into all of it, and how did she stop and get off the ride once and for all.

Faced with dead-ends in her academic research, she attempted a different tact: to find the one person in the world who shared her problem. If her Slytherin boy was indeed real, and not a dream, he should be around school, right?

She spent a week cataloguing every single boy in the snake's pit, especially the seventh years. Her mystery boy wasn't among them. He wasn't among any of the other Houses, either, when she looked there, too. He wasn't anywhere, as far as she could determine... which made her wonder if the stress of all that had happened to her this school year–being forced to watch Ron constantly snogging Lavender Brown, Katie Bell's attack, Ron's hospital visit, talking down Harry's increasing obsession with Malfoy–combined with her added school and Prefect duties, and with a growing anxiety over the inevitable war that she knew was coming was causing her to have a mental break.

Then, the truly bizarre happened: she'd begun to wonder if there wasn't something to the idea of precognition and Fate – concepts she'd always scoffed at before, but had been forced to entertain given Voldemort's obsession with Harry over the Prophecy that supposedly bound the two of them to kill each other.

On the one hand, the idea was laughable, as anyone with any sense in their heads knew Divination was a load of horse manure to start. On the other hand, it might explain her dreaming of a boy who didn't seem to be present and real.

Not that she considered herself a Seer, but what if her Slytherin love-interest had been a past lover, or if she were foretelling of his coming in the near future? It was true that determining past lives was nearly impossible as it was mostly based on a lot of feelings and impressions, and she'd never heard of one dreaming the future in such explicit detail, but as had been pointed out to her before: with magic, anything was possible.

Of course, there were holes in either theory she could have driven a truck through. For one, how could one prove reincarnation, especially when the 'experts on death' (a.k.a. the ghosts that haunted various places in the world, like Hogwarts) insisted that there was most likely no such thing, or they wouldn't exist in such a form at all, but would have moved on to their next life instead. As for pre-cognition, Seers never remembered what they predicted or where they went when they were in a predictive trance, and Hermione remembered every word, every smell, and every touch of each dream. She remembered it so much, in fact, that she almost felt hounded by it – by the memory of _him_ , the boy who didn't exist.

In the end, she added it to the 'maybe-do more research' category on the chart she'd created to track the different avenues she'd considered.

Tragically, she never got that chance, as a month later, everything changed and there was no more time for interpreting realistic dreams or String Theory or fantasising about mystery Slytherins. Real ones had launched a lethal attack on Hogwarts, crippling the Order and throwing the wizarding world into chaos in a single blow: Malfoy had let Death Eaters into the school and Dumbledore had been murdered by Snape.

Harry had been right. His unicorn had _not_ been a horse with a silly hat at all. It had been real.


	6. Chapter 6

_**~.~.~.~.~.~** _

_**June, 1997** _

_**The White Tomb, on the shores of the Black Lake, Scotland** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Hermione left Harry and Ron to talk about their next move, now that they'd all three committed to going off together to hunt down Horcruxes. She went to stand before the White Tomb, to pay her last respects in private to a man she'd held in the highest esteem.

She'd thought her sadness had worked its way through her already, as she'd had several nights alone in her dormitory to cry in the safety of her bed, hidden behind her red curtains, but the Merpeople's song and the Centaur's final good-bye during Albus' funerary service had moved her to tears. With a clean handkerchief, she dabbed at the corners of her eyes, as they flooded once more.

Earlier, Ron had been kind enough to lend her his shoulder, and for those brief moments, she'd contemplated whether the feelings that she'd held for him (which had slowly been fading over the last year) were really gone for good now. There had been a few weeks in March, after the hospital incident, that she'd thought– But no, they were done now, despite the fact he and Lavender had split up and he'd been cozying up for weeks. Besides, there was something about looking into Ron's blue eyes that made her cringe with guilt now, for she was constantly comparing them to another pair – ones as light as the pale blue hydrangea in her mother's back garden...

She stepped around the tomb, heading for the small strip of beach dividing the Black Lake from the line of grass. She stopped just shy of the water's reach. "Thank you for your song," she offered to the Merpeople, though she knew they were long gone. Their lament had been a lovely tribute.

From further down the shoreline, Hermione spied that irritating bug, Rita Skeeter, slithering up to Scrimgeour, magic quill and parchment on stand-by. The evil, rotten witch just couldn't waste an opportunity to pounce on any unsuspecting victim to sniff out a story, could she? Disgusted the woman had the audacity to even show her face at Dumbledore's funeral, Hermione sauntered closer towards the forest, wanting to escape Skeeter's presence.

She neared a spot where the trees were actually half-on the beach, their roots exposed to the continual lapping waves of the lake. On just the other side of them was an elevated grassy patch, which allowed for one to sit and dangle their legs over the edge and to let their toes trail in the chilly lake. Tucking her dress up underneath her legs, Hermione seated herself in the middle of that grassy plot of land, and looked out over the dark waters of the loch. This might be the last chance she had to visit this place, so she took the moment to tilt her face towards the sky and to absorb the scents and sounds around her, absorbing the memory of her second home.

The sweet scent of wizarding tobacco carried on the breeze to her from somewhere upwind. Looking about, Hermione caught a glimpse of Skeeter, further up the beach, puffing away on a fag, talking to her camera man. Every few seconds, the woman took a heavy drag, and then blew out a perfect cone-shaped exhale through her mouth. It was carried downwind... directly into Hermione's path.

The scent of liquorice and cloves tainted the air, reminding Hermione of her mystery Slytherin boy. She shut her eyes, trying to will away the inevitable melancholy that cropped up anytime she so much as considered the handsome, young man of her dreams, but that sadness coupled with her mourning for Dumbledore and cracked open the fissure in her heart once more...

**~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~.~**

The shores of the Black Lake were the same, but the air was different. It was chillier, with a spring's gentle wind blowing her hair about.

"I knew it."

A puff of an all-too-familiar wizard's cigarette drifted past her on the light breeze. The lake carried it away over its churning surface as the night's cooler temperature met the day's lingering heat and twilight fell.

"I was thinking of you, needed you, and you showed up again, even though it's been months since the last time."

Hermione turned, finding the object of her year-long torment sitting on a rough-faced glacial boulder, one knee cockily bent upwards while he crushed out his ciggie against the stone surface and magicked the butt away with his wand.

Again, she found herself asking: was this real?

No, it couldn't be. It had been early afternoon just a moment ago, and she'd been sitting on that grassy knoll, trying to ignore how the scent of Rita Skeeter's cigarette was making her dizzy. Standing on shaky knees, she brushed beige and grey sand from the folds of her black, cotton dress. "You... whoever you are... I'll ask you again: are you magically summoning me here?" Her mind reeled, trying to make connections where there weren't any obvious ones to be found.

Her Slytherin boy shrugged, scratching at his left forearm. "Don't know how, but seems it."

As the last rays of the setting sun touched upon his handsome features, Hermione's heartbeat accelerated. Gods, he was so beautiful... and sad, like her. Salty tracks trailed down his cheeks; he didn't brush them away or try to hide them. In fact, from the set of his posture to the etched lines in his face, Hermione sensed that he was a man resigned to some unwanted fate.

"Are you doing it in dreams or some other way, and why?" she pressed.

He didn't say anything for a long while as he stared out over the lake. The sun fell below the horizon, and then night's blanket embraced them. The moon was already up and nearly half-full, allowing her to see him through rays of silvery light.

"I've been thinking long and hard about us since the last time I saw you," he admitted finally, "and I think the reason you keep showing up is that you're meant to help me."

She didn't like the sound of that. That sounded too much like what Dumbledore had said to her once about Harry.

"Help you to do what exactly?"

He hopped off the boulder and approached, hands in his pockets again. "Make a decision."

When they were a breath away, he reached out and touched her cheek with a very light brush of his fingertips. Hermione didn't flinch; in fact, she felt an odd longing for him to close the gap between them and bring them together, body to body. His gaze moved across her features, highlighted by the rising half-moon. "You're really very pretty. I'm weak for big, brown eyes, curls, and a dash of freckles," he said, his tone gentle. He stroked down a lock of her hair. "You're the perfect girl to tempt me. I wonder if I didn't conjure you after all." His attention cut from her lips to her eyes. "You still a virgin?"

"Yes," she whispered, not wanting to disturb the hush that had already settled across the sleepy Scottish landscape.

Wait, why had she told him that?

_Focus, Hermione._

"What sort of decision?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he leaned forward and kissed her again, and although it was brief, it was also tender and soft. "You always taste so warm and sweet," he murmured, his lips stroking over hers. "Like sunshine."

"You're liquorice and sweet cloves, like your cigarettes," she told him around small kisses. "It's nice."

_What are you doing? Stop this, before-_

His arms came around her and he rubbed his cheek against her temple, and there was simply no desire to fight what felt so good and right. "What's your name?" she asked, her heart beating like mad in her mouth.

He paused a moment, as if trying to decide whether to answer her question or not. "Ral," he finally told her, with a hint of a French accent on the name. "Are you Muggle-born?"

The unexpected question threw her for a loop. "Why should that matter?"

He gave a resigned huff. "You are, aren't you? It's ironic, is all. I looked up 'Hermione'. It's not a witch's name, but Muggle," he explained. "And this is twice now I've seen you in Muggle day clothing, too. I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance on your blood purity, but somehow, I just knew you weren't half-blood." He sighed. "I think our meeting like this must have been fated. Nothing else makes sense."

Manoeuvering from his embrace, she held him at arm's length. "I don't understand. What's ironic about me being Muggle-born? What does my magical heritage have to do with whatever this decision is that you have to make?" The words were hardly out of her mouth when the answer clubbed her over the head. Her eyes dropped to the forearm Ral had been scratching during their previous meetings. His left forearm – the one Hermione now knew from Harry's speculation was the preferred location for the Dark Mark. Knees, hands, and heart trembling, she stepped away from Ral. "You're... you're one of _them_ , aren't you - a Death Eater!"

Ral watched her reaction through a flat, serpent's gaze. "Can I assume from your reaction that you're one of Potter's friends, in that little secret Order of his?"

Hermione's chin came up. "Yes, I am, and proud of it."

Ral looked off into the distance, giving a cynical huff. "I'll just bet. Everyone loves Four-Eyes and his merry band of miscreants."

"How dare you," she hissed. "We're not the ones out murdering innocent people! How can you do this? How can you possibly think of serving... You-Know-Who? He's a genocidal lunatic!"

Her companion chuckled. "I wouldn't say that to his face if I were you."

"Do you honestly believe in that rubbish he preaches?" she dared to ask. "After what we've... done together... do you really consider me inferior and a magical blight? Could you really kill people like me if he ordered you to?"

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "I think that's what you're here to help me decide."

She scoffed. "Why would you even need to think about it? He preaches murder, enslavement, torture, and twists beautiful magic into something black and horrible. His philosophy is evil. His methods are evil. His _soul_ is evil."

"I know all that."

"Then why are you even contemplating the situation?"

He turned to stare at her head-on. "I'm not. I agree with you completely. I'm contemplating whether I should take an offer Dumbledore made me months ago."

"What offer?"

The pause he let stand between them was a long one, but Hermione refused to give him the opportunity to dodge her question by looking away. She stared him down, planting an unspoken challenge in her gaze, and waited for him to answer.

Ral let out a deep, heavy sigh. "To turn spy for your precious Order of the Phoenix."

Hermione's heart thumped hard under her ribs. "You'd do that?" Disbelief suddenly warred with her idealism. Ral was a Slytherin, after all. "What would you want in return?"

His lids lowered, and his gaze grew heavy. "Isn't it obvious by now? I want you."

"Me?" To say she was shocked by his candid pronouncement was the understatement of the year. "You'd want _me_ as payment for turning traitor?" The idea was completely galling... and strangely, a bit flattering. "Why?"

"Why, indeed," he asked, sounding as bewildered as she was. "Your innocence is tempting, I'll admit, but it's more than that. It's-" He shook his head, frowned, and seemed to struggle with the right words to say. "I feel like I knew you before you ever appeared on the train last year. Like we exist somewhere together, and that you're mine, but it's not here. Shit, I can't explain it right!" His hand clutched his shirt over the area of his heart. "All I know is I'm hollow when you leave me. You always disappear between one blink and the next, and you rip my heart out every fucking time."

Yes, that's how it felt for her, too - more so this last time.

Immediately upon waking up from her previous episode, she had felt strangely bereft, heartbroken, and confused. She'd kept her friends at an emotional distance for days as she'd tried to puzzle it all out, acting as a woman in mourning might. When confronted on her odd behaviour by first Professor McGonagall and later by Harry, she had passed it off as a combination of monthly hormones and heavy stress, her favourite excuse this last year. The little, white lie had worked its magic once more, especially when her best friend had passed on the warning to their core group of friends to give her some space.

It had taken almost a full week to pass through the stages of her grief and to put her hurt away, rationalizing her ridiculous crush and putting it in its proper perspective. Much as one might pine for a movie star they fancied, she'd figured so was it between her and her dream wizard: impossible, silly, and imaginary.

This newest dream jaunt had brought it all back, though. Her feelings for Ral returned full-force as she stood before him now, and they blindsided her with their strength.

"It's the same for me," she admitted.

Her words cause the moment to irrevocably shift and snap; Ral approached her with a confrontational gait, grabbed her arms in a fierce grip, and shook her once. His face was a mask of confusion and pain and wariness. "Who are you to me? Why does my body want you when you're near? Why do I hurt when I look at you? What have you done to me?"

Tears swam in Hermione's vision as he put to her every question she'd wanted to ask him from the beginning. "I don't know! I DON'T!" she yelled back. "I think it's you, not me! I think you're responsible!" She pushed against him and demanded back, "Let me go! Whatever you're doing to me, just let me go!"

"I can't," he snarled in her face. "I fucking can't! Not again!" He slammed his mouth down on hers, kissing her with a determined hunger. She tried to deny what was happening between them by turning her head, but Ral fisted a hunk of her hair and held her still. "Don't turn away from me again. Stay with me. _Please!_ " He was begging, shaking from head to toe, the same as she was. He seemed as equally torn up by this strange connection between them, unable to fathom it or to deny it.

A sob was ripped from Hermione's chest as his face was swiftly engulfed in shadow. "Oh, God, I'm going again and I can't stop it! I'm sorry. Just please, _please_ don't serve Voldemort!"

"Hermione, don't go!" Ral demanded, gripping her arms harder, pulling her against him. "Stay with me!"

**~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~.~**

She was exactly where she'd been prior to her strange fugue: sitting on a grassy patch near the Black Lake. The sun in the sky told her it was still early afternoon. She looked down the beach to where Skeeter had been smoking... The woman was gone. Instead, Harry and Ron were making their way over to her, their faces determined, grim.

Hermione covered her face with her hands as the familiar ache of Ral's loss overwhelmed her once more. Fortunately, her friends believed her grief to be for Dumbledore, encompassing her fear about the unknown future. She didn't bother to correct their misunderstanding.


	7. Chapter 7

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**July, 1997** _

_**The Granger Home, Lingfield, Surrey** _

**.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

The next pass into unconsciousness came the night Hermione had been made to cast a Memory Charm on her parents.

After she set Monica and Wendell Wilkins' packed bags by the door and placed the one-way tickets she'd purchased to Australia in her mum's purse, she'd said her good-byes from a distance, not willing to get any closer to them to avoid leaving any trace of herself (her scent or her magical resonance) on their person. She'd whispered her wishes for a good, long life to them, told them she'd always love them while holding back tears, and then she'd walked out the front door, locking it behind and leaving their unconscious forms on the sofa.

As she walked to the Lingfield railway station now, careful to stay out from under the street lamps and sticking to the shadows, Hermione tried to keep up a brave face to avoid from calling any unwanted attention should anyone pass her by. Crippling regret and a deep, lonely ache burrowed into her soul, and with every step away from her home that she took, she felt more and more like one of those panicked, lost children in a department store, worried of being completely abandoned by her parents and stricken with the knowledge that she would be forever alone.

She was now utterly without family in the world. Her parents would be alive, yes, but they would not remember her as being theirs. The False Memory Charm she'd used wasn't an Obliviation spell – it didn't permanently erase memories. Instead, it simply stored new ones on top of old ones, covering up the old memories and replacing them with the false memories. It was reversible, thank heavens, but the problem with it was the longer it was allowed to stay in place, the more irate and confused the victim would be later when the false memories were removed and they were faced with the fact that what they'd believed so strongly was all a lie. As she had no way of knowing how long the war would drag on, Hermione wondered if it wouldn't just be kinder to her parents when the war ended to leave the charm in place and to never see them again. Perhaps the life they would lead as 'Monica' and 'Wendell' would be a better, happier one than the one they had lead as Helen and Richard Granger.

The sadness that thought conjured overwhelmed her, and by the time she'd made it to the station, she'd had to walk around the side of the brick building to hide her tears. The scent of cigarette smoke was strong here, and she noted a small stainless steel receptacle placed to the side that was filled with sand and crushed fags. The tobacco scent reminded her a bit of Ral, and how their last episode had ended.

He was real, wasn't he? She wasn't going insane, was she? This last time she hadn't woken up in a bed or sleeping against the wall in a stairwell. Instead, she'd been awake, sitting in the same position, never having moved from her spot on the grass, so that had to mean he wasn't a product of dreams, didn't it?

If it had been real, then Ral was a Death Eater – a soldier in Voldemort's army. A man who'd vowed to wipe her and her family off the face of the Earth. He was her sworn enemy.

 _That_ awful truth made her cry even harder.

As she hugged her arms around her middle to hold back the worst of her sobs, she suddenly felt rather dizzy. Leaning against the brick, she wiped a hand across her eyes.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

The familiar statues of winged boars situated atop two columns to either side of a tall, wrought-iron gate sent her into 'panic mode'. How in the name of Merlin's white beard had she gotten outside the Main Entrance of Hogwarts?

"Shit, it worked!"

She turned about, recognising the voice behind her. "Ral? What did you do?" she asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks with a shaky hand.

Before she could understand his intent and dodge it, Ral had her up in his arms and was spinning her around, whooping in triumph. Hermione clung to his strong shoulders and dropped her face into the cradle of his throat, closing her eyes tight against the dizzying blurring of the landscape. His skin and clothing smelled of his habitual liquorice and sweet cloves.

"Stop," she commanded him. "Please, put me down."

Immediately, the twirling ended, and she was set on her feet. Ral continued to hold her to him, however, hugging her with great enthusiasm. "I woke up from a sound sleep in my bed at home tonight after dreaming about us meeting out here, Hermione. I just knew I was supposed to come, no matter that it's the middle of the night. I got dressed, and Disapparated from my home in Corsham. I've been hanging around waiting for you to show – just finished a clove in fact." He let out a deep, contented sigh. "It's just like I dreamed. You're with me again."

His summer coat was scratchy against her cheek, but he was warm against the chilly night air. "I was at a Muggle train station in Surrey. I don't understand this at all. I'm not Disapparating or Porting over. There's no feeling of being squeezed, no crack of thunder. I blink, and suddenly I'm transported over five-hundred miles away." She shivered with a strange dread. "How is this possible? It defies every law of magic and Muggle science."

Ral tenderly ran his fingers through her long hair, careful not to get his fingers snagged. "I don't care how it happened. You're with me again. That's all I need to get through this."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her sixth sense tingling. Leaning back, she met his eye. "What's going on?"

His smiled dropped away.

"Tell me," she gently prompted.

It took Ral two stops and starts before the truth came out. "Two nights ago, my father was killed by a member of your Order."

Hermione went stone still, shocked by the news.

"That's why I was home. I've been helping Mother arrange things." Ral nervously ran his hands up and down her arms, as if assuring himself she was really there with him in that moment. "They said someone named Longbottom killed him. They're talking revenge, and they all expect my brother and me to carry it out."

"Longbottom? As in Neville?" True, she hadn't kept tabs on all of the Order members since Dumbledore's funeral the month before, but surely she would have heard something through the grapevine about _Neville_ killing, wouldn't she? Or maybe it had been his grandmother instead? The woman was known to have a wicked temper and a fast wand, despite her advanced age and poor eyesight. "Wait, who's 'all'?"

When Ral didn't explain further, Hermione instinctively knew what he wasn't saying.

"You haven't taken the deal yet, have you?"

He let her go, stepping back and wiping at his eyes. "No, I haven't taken the bloody deal, Hermione," he said, glowering at her.

"Why not?" she demanded.

His hands visibly shook as he pushed his fringe off his face. His hair was longer than when they'd first met, and needed a cut. "I'm not sure I can. It's not as easy a situation as you think."

She threw her hands into the air. "Why are you at all conflicted? You admitted you didn't share You-Know-Who's world view, and that he's evil. It's obviously in your best interests to leave him. So, what's keeping you from saying 'yes' to the deal, Ral? Why are you holding back?" As he wavered in giving a response, Hermione attempted a softer approach to coax the answers from him. "Please help me to understand why we can't be together."

Some of the tension left him and he seemed to open up, encouraged by her willingness to listen to his side. Taking her hands, he drew her close and finally shared his secrets with her.

"It's my big brother," he admitted, for the first time being completely forthright. "There's six years between Rolph and me, but we were close growing up. He'd always watch over me, keep others from bullying me, and he stood up for me when no one else would. For years and years, I looked up to him, Hermione. When I got into Hogwarts, though, he was in his seventh year and already mixed-up with the Death Eaters. He took the Mark the night of his graduation. I was there, watched what he'd become after that and... well, we drifted apart."

He dropped one of her hands and rubbed the back of his neck. "But here's the thing: Rolph needs me now. See, he's all brawn, little brains. There's no forethought in his decisions, and he has absolutely no will to say 'no' when it comes to trouble. He's a blind follower."

"If he's chosen his path, then why–?" Hermione began to argue. Ral held a hand up, signalling she should wait and let him finish before asking him questions. She gave him the benefit of the doubt and shut her mouth, listening to his tale.

"My brother has really only been blessed with three merits in this life: his brute strength, being the eldest son and therefore entitled to our family's vast fortune, and a dogged allegiance to upholding tradition, specifically, devotion to his family. I love Rolph, but if I was to be totally honest, he's the product of my father's narrow-minded brainwashing and my mother's viciousness. He never really had a chance to say 'no' to their legacy, and he's just not smart enough to realise that following their example is digging his grave. I joined the D.E. for him – to interject a little sanity and influence… to try to keep him alive. Now that my father's dead-" his voice snagged on the word, "-Rolph's wife will certainly take the place of the authority figure in his life. I know her – can't stand the woman, honestly. She whispers like a spider in your ear, poisoning you. Rolph's completely devoted to her, mostly because he's easily led around by his meat. Without Father to interject and overrule her, I don't think my brother will make it out of this war alive – unless I'm there to take up my father's vacant place in Rolph's life."

Hermione placed a hand on his shoulder to steady him, as he seemed on the verge of an emotional meltdown. "I think it's a very brave and honourable thing you're doing, Ral, but your brother is a grown man. You can't be responsible for saving him from himself. If he chooses to do evil and gets punished or killed for it, that's not your fault – nor is it your burden to carry. It's like I keep telling my best friend, Harry: you can't save everyone. All you can do in this world is to try to do the right thing."

Ral shook his head. Clearly, his sibling's poor choices and how they affected their entwined future was a frustrating conundrum for him. "Rolph's the one who taught me how to ride a broom and to skip rocks. He used to read me to sleep when I was little, and he took beatings from the other kids for me when we were children. My father was rarely around when I was growing up, and when he was, there were never any kind words or encouraging gestures from him. My mother was an affectionless Ice Queen, who cared only about status and power. Rolph was the only one who showed me any love or affection. He was my best friend – my only friend, until Hogwarts." Tears streamed freely down his ruddy cheeks as he warred with himself over the issue. "Hermione, he was there for me when I was afraid and needed someone to be good to me. Even though he's changed, I want to be here for him in the same way now." He reached up and took her hand from him, entwining their fingers. "So, what if the right thing for me to do now is to stay where I am, and to try to convince Rolph to switch sides with me? What if that's my path?"

Hermione stared at this lonely, good man and felt her heart break for him. His loyalty to his brother was commendable. She also feared it would spell his doom.

She turned his hand over, popped the button on his cuff, and slowly raised the sleeve of his dress shirt to bare his Dark Mark to her sight. Even in the semi-darkness, with only the moon to light the world around them, the Mark stood out as a stark, bleak tattoo against the backdrop of his pale flesh.

"Don't touch it," he gently warned her.

Her throat tightened at the sight of the sinister-looking tattoo. He'd taken the Mark not for himself, but for his brother. "I've heard that once you get the Mark, it's forever."

He sniffed in sad amusement. "The things you do for love, yeah?"

Tears wavered in Hermione's vision. "Oh, Ral." The lengths he'd gone through to protect Rolph were extreme, yes, but then she considered the lengths _she'd_ gone through to protect her parents – namely, she'd broken wizarding law in casting a Memory Charm on them, and that was punishable by imprisonment, too. It was for that reason she couldn't condemn Ral for not wanting to immediately abandon his place in Voldemort's army. He _was_ doing what he believed was the right thing.

"What would it take to convince you to accept the offer and join me in the Order?" she asked, hot tears dripping down her cheeks.

Ral dropped her hand as if burned, and quickly rolled his shirt sleeve back down over the Mark, covering it up once more. "After everything I've said, you still want to negotiate my turning traitor against my brother?" He sounded angry and disappointed.

"No, not that," she explained. "I understand what he means to you now, and what you're trying to accomplish. What I'm asking is: what do you need from me to get out from under You-Know-Who's thumb _with_ Rolph."

Ral looked like a man daring to hope again. "You would do that for me? Why?"

Reaching up, she brushed his dark fringe to the side. "You said I was drawn to you for a reason. Maybe this is it."

He took her in his arms once more. "Any plan you think will work, I'll follow. You help me save Rolph, and I'll be your spy."

Sliding her arms around his neck, Hermione reached up on tiptoe, stretching her face towards his in a silent plea for a kiss. She felt brazen, daring just then. "Is that all you want?"

His eyes rounded with astonishment. "You never cease to surprise me, my sweet girl," he murmured, smirking. Lowering his mouth, he slid his bottom lip against hers. "What would you say to me demanding you as part of the bargain?"

Hermione stared into the heart of him as she sealed her fate. "I'd accept your terms."

"Promise?" he whispered, while sipping from her lips with small kisses.

"Yes."

"Good." He dragged her to her knees with him, and laid her back into the soft, green grass just to the side of the main path, under the shadow of the great wall. There, against the refuge of the stone, his body blanketed hers, their curves and angles matching in a perfect fit. Capturing Hermione's mouth, Ral hypnotized her senses with drugging kisses. With gentle fingers, he explored the texture of her hair, followed the pulse in her throat, and traced the shape of her features. Each caress was electric, inciting a hum that travelled the length of her spine, rousing her whole body with pleasurable, little shivers... and making her ache for more.

"Touch me here," she begged him, gripping his hand and directing it under the hem of her shirt. "Please."

Proceeding with soothing strokes over her abdomen, Ral slowly worked his way up her body until his hand cupped her breast. Hermione arched into his warm palm with an unrestrained moan of delight.

"Not that I'm complaining, but how is it possible no one else has discovered your beauty yet?" he asked, speaking low. He circled her nipple through her bra, pinching and rolling the tightening bud between his thumb and forefinger, watching her as he easily manipulated her body.

Hermione's breath hitched. "No one else sees me like you do," she admitted, feeling her cheeks pink from embarrassment. "I... I don't mean to sound self-pitying. That's not... What I mean is, well, I'm 'the study partner', not 'the Friday night date'. And honestly, I'm perfectly fine with that scenario. I'm not very comfortable with being touched, except by my parents and my best friends. And you."

He chuckled, and bent to kiss her lips again. "I'd say I'm rather lucky, then."

"Is this luck or is there really such a thing as fate?" she wondered aloud, feathering her fingers through Ral's soft hair and tipped her mouth higher for him to take and ravish.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

She was crouched against the brick wall of the Lingfield Train Station. Behind her, the sound of a train pulling out was a loud rumble.

"Ral," she whispered as tears leaked down her cheeks and she fought against the violent wave of depression that swamped over her emotions as she lost him again. She bowed her head, ran her fingers through her hair and tugged. "Oh, Merlin, I am going insane!"

The voice over the intercom calling the next train's arrival cut through her despair, and it struck her then that she was wasting precious time sitting here when she should be on the move. If the enemy discovered that Lingfield was her hometown, they would come here and take her prisoner, most likely kill everything in sight until their blood thirst was quenched, all to lure Harry out into the open. She couldn't afford to spend even a precious few minutes feeling sorry for herself.

Solidifying her resolve to do this one thing to protect those she loved, Hermione stood on shaky knees, wiped the tears from her face, and reached into her enchanted beaded bag for her Muggle wallet. Money in hand, she bought a ticket and left Surrey as quickly as possible, taking one of the late trains to Barnstaple – a nine and a half-hour ride away, which would get her close enough to Ottery St. Catchpole and The Burrow, where she, Ron, and Harry had planned to stay for Bill's wedding.

Whether Ral (if he was real at all) took the deal Dumbledore had offered him before his death remained to be seen. Hermione could only hope he would. Should she alert the other Order members to be on the look-out for his note, however, just in case?

She debated the issue in her head for hours as the train rolled across the countryside, stopping here and there at various stations where she had to get off and make changes to get to her final destination. In the end, she'd decided that she would keep all information about Ral to herself. Alarming Molly or Arthur to some strange, possibly imagined magical connection to a Death Eater would only have her put under house lock-down by Remus or Moody, and _that_ would jeopardize her secret mission to hunt down Horcruxes with her two best friends after the wedding – something she absolutely couldn't chance. She wouldn't risk sending Harry and Ron off alone on such a dangerous quest, because Merlin knew what sort of trouble her two boys would get into without her there to pull them out of the fire.

For the time being, Ral would remain her secret.


	8. Chapter 8

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**November, 1997** _

_**Duddon Valley, Cumbria** _

**.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

As Hermione lay in her bunk, remembering how just the year before, around this same time, Ron had stepped all over her feelings by snogging Lavender Brown in their common room in front of everyone made her wish for such simpler times and for such childish problems. Now they were in the middle of the war, constantly hunted by an army of clever and powerful magic users, with no clue as to where to go to find the next Horcrux or even how to destroy the one they had managed to capture.

And Ron had left them twelve days ago. It didn't look like he was coming back, either.

Hermione dealt with that betrayal with tears of anger and frustration in her bunk every night and with a weary silence during each day. She'd really thought that she and Ron had made great progress in repairing their strained friendship back at Grimmauld Place for the month they'd stayed there in August. He'd opened up to her in a way he never had before, admitting to things like his fears for Harry, for her, and for disappointing his family by failing when just the two of them were in the room together, or late at night when Harry was already asleep. He'd even held her hand the first night they'd bunked down at Grimmauld, seeking her comforting touch to reassure him that everything between them as friends hadn't been irrevocably damaged by his pursuit of Lavender last year. Things between them had finally begun to go back to 'normal'.

The locket Horcrux had ruined all of that, playing upon his weaknesses, stirring up his jealousy. It had driven him to abandon them when they'd needed him the most.

For the first five days of Ron's absence, Hermione had resented him for it – that, despite the fact that she knew it wasn't really his fault, but the responsibility of the dark magic that was toying with his mind. She'd finally been able to let it go on the sixth day, when she and Harry had decided to move camp, realizing that the reason the Horcrux had been able to take advantage of Ron wasn't because he was a bad man, but because he was a very good man. Wearing your heart upon your sleeve was a Weasley trait, after all.

True, Ron's abandonment hurt, but that was not to reason for her tears anymore. Now, there was a more insidious kind of hurt brewing; the kind that had the potential to definitively shift the course of the war into Voldemort's favour if she gave into it: Slytherin's locket was whispering things in her ear that she had never wanted to consider – things about Harry.

The beautifully, hand-crafted piece of jewellery holding a piece of Voldemort's evil, twisted soul within it was telling her that her best friend wanted her in a sexual manner. Every time it touched her skin, it spoke of his lust for her, and it reminded her that she was alone with Harry, that no one would hear her screams if Harry decided to take what he wanted. It tried to make her want to abandon her friend out of fear, or worse, kill him before he could rape her in her sleep.

She suspected the locket was saying similarly awful things to Harry, too, for each time he so much as glanced in her direction she caught the speculation in his green gaze. Was it coaxing him to rape her, or murder her in her sleep before she could murder him?

Hating the horcux with her very soul, she longed to toss it away into the bush and urge Harry to Disapparate with her somewhere far away from it, but she knew that to do so would be playing right into Voldemort's hands. So, she blocked her ears, and thought of other things–defensive and offensive spell combinations, potions ingredients, listing every known Magical Creature on the planet in alphabetical order, and Ral's sweet kisses and warm touches–to shut the voice out when the locket lay upon her breast.

Tonight, Harry had it, and from across the tent, she listened as he tossed and turned in his cot, moaning as it tampered with his dreams.

She'd never felt so alone in the whole of her life...

"Ral," she whispered into her pillow. "I need you so much. Please."

The phantom, remembered scent of liquorice and sweet cloves tickled her nose. She inhaled, feeling a queer lightness to her heart at just the imagined fragrance.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

She was pressed against a warm chest, and solidly-muscled arms were wrapped around her. She lay on her side in a bed of some sort, stiff and frightened, listening to the steady, strong heartbeat against her ear.

"About bloody time," Ral sighed, shuddering. He flipped her onto her back and loomed over her, his big body lying over hers. "I've prayed for months for you to come back to me, and tonight... I knew if I prayed one more time, you'd come. Damn, I've missed you, Hermione."

His mouth touched down on hers, and his kiss was tender, loving.

Throwing her arms around his neck, Hermione let his touch and taste erased the aching loneliness deep within her. His kiss rocked her soul. A barely-restrained hunger passed between their breaths, even as his tongue plunged in and robbed her of all thought. It was a deep, needy kiss that grew with intensity as he gripped her hands, held them up by her head, and entwined their fingers.

"I've tried to let you go," she whispered as he paused to brush his soft lips over hers, barely touching. "I thought I had to."

"Me, too," he admitted. "I couldn't, though. You fill my head and my heart. The memory of you is sometimes the only thing that gets me through the days."

"Me, too," she admitted, and nipped his bottom lip, wanting him to come back and kiss her again.

He moaned, and above her, his big body shuddered. "I want to make love to you, Hermione, before you disappear again. I feel like... time is always running out on us, and... I don't want to let this chance slip by."

Hovering on the brink of this decision, Hermione considered his request. Should she allow this to happen? If this were all a dream world where they were magically meeting, then as he'd pointed out before, what was the harm of them crossing lines and becoming sexual? It would be strange, yes, but Ral was no stranger, not to her heart. What was between them felt like what he had claimed the last time they'd met: like a part of her belonged to him already, as if they'd known each other somehow before. She didn't believe in past lives as a general principle, but just then, she had to admit that perhaps there might be some truth to the idea, for she felt as if she knew Ral already. It was a weird circular-logic loop that she felt trapped within.

"Would you go slowly?" she asked. "I've never done it before."

Kissing her very softly to ease her concerns, he whispered, "No need to be frightened, love. You know I will."

"I'm not frightened, not with you." She was nervous and anxious to try something she'd never done before, but certainly not afraid with Ral there to guide her.

Ral let out a small sigh of relief, the path before him resolved. "I've wanted you from the first moment I saw you on that train," he admitted, stroking his thumb over her bottom lip. "I can't explain it. I don't understand it myself, but… I need you in a way that goes beyond what we're doing."

Nodding, she said, "Me, too."

Sitting up, he disrobed first himself, then her a piece at a time, moving carefully, but with a confidence that said he'd done this before. That was both reassuring and a bit distracting a thought, honestly, as the woman within her wondered how she measured up against those other witches.

As her body was revealed to him, Ral made her feel beautiful and cherished, but as his Dark Mark came into view, she shuddered and tried not to look directly at it. "Bind it, please. I don't want to see it."

With a few waves of his wand, Ral cast a magical bandage over his forearm, covering it up, then another upon her womb – the Contraceptive Charm that all the girls learned in sixth year Health classes with Madam Pomfrey. When that was done, he placed his wand on the bedside table.

"It'll hurt a little the first time," he told her, laying his naked body over hers and taking her into his arms, "but I'll go slowly, I promise."

With his weight pressing her into the mattress, and the heaviness of his arousal lying against her thigh, Hermione let go of all doubts and fears, and let the moment happen. "I trust you, Ral."

He cupped her cheeks, staring down into her eyes as if seeking reassurance. What he saw in her face seemed to be exactly what he needed, because his tensed muscles relaxed as well. "My Hermione," he sighed with relief, and bent his head to steal her breath away again with his kiss.

This time, his mouth brought wild, destructive pleasure, as he let loose his desire for her. Her body reacted in accord, holding him just as tightly, meeting his kisses with her own elevated need. Their bodies rubbed together, and she could feel the sticky pre-release he put out making her lower belly slick. His mouth and hands were everywhere; no place was left unexplored. Fingers slid down her waist, gripped her thighs, only to nudge them apart. When he ran two of them through her core, finding the slippery wetness that he'd coaxed to life, he groaned.

Dropping down her body, he opened her wide with his hands, and dipped his mouth forward to kiss her fleshy, moist lips. Hermione's legs shook as a wave of restless anticipation shot into the very heart of her. Never in her life had she imagined such pleasure. She twisted beneath Ral's clever tongue as it bathed and coaxed her, worshipping her until her body was dripping wet and desperate. With tears of pleasure rolling down the sides of her face, she came against his mouth in a shattering release that brought her to the very heights of passion, and left her gasping for breath, heart pounding, and mind hazy.

Ral crawled up her body and repositioned himself over her. "Raise your knees for me and hold onto my shoulders," he bid in a soft tone.

She did as he asked, cradling him precisely where he needed to be.

Her lids flickered once, and then she met his concentrated gaze without looking away, noting the shine of her fluids across his lips and chin, and the tenderness reflected in his ice-blue eyes. With controlled force, his hips fell forward and down, pressing the head of him directly against her tender opening. A small thrust, and the stubborn flesh parted. He inched inside.

Stretched tight, she could feel him sliding deeper, pausing, and then pulling back, only to move forward again. In this way, he opened her up, allowed her to adjust to the feel of him with small, shallow strokes going a bit further each time. She hissed as there was a sharp, pinching pain as he went a little deeper, and dug her nails into his skin to tell him to stop. "Almost," he told her, his face a mask of concentration mingled with lust and awe. "Relax and accept me."

She wanted to tell him so many things in that moment, but her jumbled, excited thoughts were lost as he gently surged forward again, and this time, there was a quick, tearing sensation. Holding on tight to his shoulders, all her muscles tensing against the pain, Hermione gave a small cry. He was thicker than she'd expected, and her pelvis ached from accommodating his width. It had hurt, that was no lie, but strangely, it also felt right, as if this was where she was meant to be – in Ral's arms, his body and hers connected in the most intimate way possible.

Ral groaned as he slowly pushed on through her tight inner channel. "All done," he whispered, and pulled his hips back one more time, burying his length to the hilt in her in a smooth forward glide, uniting them at long last. "My sweet girl," he crooned, reaching up to wipe the moisture from the corner of her eyes and to run his fingers through her hair. He tenderly touched her, soothing her. "Are you okay, love?"

"Don't move, please," she requested around a baby whimper. "Just a moment more."

Ral kissed her, whispered affection for her, and held still as she asked. He brushed her hair back from her cheeks, and nuzzled her throat. "You feel so good," he told her. "So good, I want to come right now – buried deep inside you, just like this."

 _Please don't let me disappear yet_ , she prayed to whoever might be listening, wanting to feel Ral's pleasure, to know how it would be for a man to release within her body and fill her with his seed. She'd already experienced her own orgasm, and it had been wonderful. Now, she wanted to experience his, and to give him that same kind of pleasure.

"You can, if you want," she offered, knowing it would be the end of the sex once he ejaculated, but not minding. He could always make it up to her the next time.

Ral slid a hand down her arm, snuck underneath their pressed bodies, and thumbed across her aching nipple, stroking it in small circles. She groaned, distracted by the electric sensation. Her spine curled, and her hips thrust up in an automatic reaction. The movement didn't cause her pain; the hurt was, in fact, fading. She was still sore, but it wasn't a bad ache, she noticed.

Her lover gave her a naughty smile. "Not yet. I want to see more of that from you first."

With an enthusiastic nod, she let him know it was okay for them to proceed.

They set an easy in-and-out rhythm, and it wasn't long before Hermione realized that the sex no longer hurt at all, and that what they were doing was feeling rather lovely, just as Ral had promised. The wide width of him glided into her at an increasing pace, and soon his thrusts grew heavier, more intense.

Hermione's head fell back into the mattress, and her legs lifted into an instinctual position that would allow him to go deeper into her with each surge forward. In a small push-up motion, Ral braced himself on the palms of his hands over her, separating their bodies, except where he was surging into her. His hips swung loose, while his thighs went taut. Sweat dripped from him onto her chest, and the bed rocked with a loud creaking as their passion ignited and they lost control together.

"Yes, oh, yes," she cried, arching to meet him, holding to his arms for dear life as the melting, churning heat in her womb expanded throughout her body.

He paused only a moment to wrap his arms around her back and to pull her up onto him, even as he sat back onto his haunches. In this position, his long, thick length was buried so deep it was both pleasure and pain – more the former, than the latter, thankfully. "Up and down like this," he taught her, moving his hands on her hips to guide her. From this new angle, her clitoris was massaged on each downward stroke. It caused her to spark and quake with a burning need.

The sounds coming from her mouth surprised her. Hermione made panting, little animal noises of pleasure as her body tightened up, demanding a release. "Oh, please, more," she moaned and demanded, rocking over his body.

"That's it, sweet girl. Take me all the way with you," he coaxed.

She rode him as he directed, flames of unbearable pleasure whipping through her, swelling and growing as she drove him into the ultra-sensitive depths of her body. She held onto him, her arms around his neck, and threw her head back on her shoulders as the pleasure peaked. "Ral!" she keened as she tumbled over the cliff and rushed headlong into ecstasy. "I... _oh,_ _Ral!_ "

Her orgasm this time was a shimmering wave of incredible pleasure which crashed over her, making her cry out with joy. Behind her lids, bright detonations of blue stars left her blinded.

"God, Hermione!" her lover groaned as he pulled her down on him a final time. He gave a little gasp, and then his hot semen filled her in pulse after pulse of explosive release. Ral's arms tightened to hold her in place, even as he trembled all over. His lower body jerked with each jet of his seed drawn from him and he moaned in ecstasy as he emptied himself into her.

"Don't leave me again," he murmured against her ear as the last of his tremors finally ebbed away and he slumped against her, panting for breath. "Stay with me this time."

"I'll try," she vowed, and kissed him with her whole heart in her mouth.

Their hands stroked each other everywhere, continuing to touch despite the fact the sex was over. Hermione felt her bond to Ral growing in those tender moments, when words were not necessary. He pulled her as close to him as possible, readjusting her over his lap so that he stayed inside her and they remained connected. She ran her fingers over the sweaty nape of his neck and placed tiny kisses up and down his throat, snuggling into him. When he dragged them both back down onto the mattress, they cuddled under his blankets.

Very soon, he was fast asleep.

Unlike her lover, Hermione's rest didn't come right away. She was frightened that if she closed her eyes, she'd find herself back in her cot in the tent, and all of this would be have been nothing more than a fantastic dream. Instead, she spent the time softly touching Ral, memorizing his features. He had long, sooty lashes, and a gorgeous bone structure. The small, years-old scar on his left cheek was so faded and perfectly placed that it looked like a dimple; she thought it gave his too-perfect face some character, much like Harry's scar and Ron's freckles. His hair was of medium thickness and soft, and definitely in need of a cut, as it was growing past his ears now. In sleep, he looked younger than when he was awake and she wondered how old he was – eighteen, nineteen? The pale skin of his torso and limbs was perfectly unmarred, except for the Dark Mark that she knew lurked under the bindings on his left arm, and a pattern of three moles on his right shoulder. His hands were calloused from time on a broom, so she assumed he'd been a Quidditch player.

Her fingers traced over every muscled ridge on his abdomen, but there she stopped, as the covers prevented her from going further south to explore.

"Scared?" Ral challenged her, a smile slowly curving his lips. His lids were still closed, but clearly, he'd been aware of her examination.

"Not likely. I'm Gryffindor," she retorted with a huff of playful arrogance.

His eyes snapped open and his smile fell. "Gryffindor? But I looked for you in that House. You weren't there."

Hermione went completely still. "And I looked for you in Slytherin and you weren't there either."

His lids flared and he sat up on an elbow. "Are you saying... shit, that one of us truly isn't real then? That this really is all a dream? How? Why?"

"I don't know."

That inconvenient darkness signalling the end of this jaunt crept in along the sides of her vision and Hermione abruptly sat up. "No, no, no!" she shouted, gripping the sides of her head. "Not again! It's happening again! I'm going back. I can't stay!"

Ral reached up and held onto her. "Don't go!"

Desperately, she wrapped her arms around him, even as the darkness was nearly complete. "Ral!"

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

The dull grey canvas of the tent above her head came into focus, followed by the musty smell that always seemed to accompany camping out in the wilderness. She knew by the way the light shone through the fabric above that it was daylight now, and from the lack of warmth and presence that Ral was gone again, fading from her mind as only dreams can. Once more, that ache of losing him set in, robbing her of breath.

She rolled over in her cot and began crying again, the sobs ripped from her chest in uncontrollable waves of sadness. Behind her, she heard Harry stand up from his cot and hurriedly leave the tent, her tears chasing him away.

Half an hour later, she pushed herself up, determined that she needed a hot bath. Every muscle was sore, especially those in her pelvis and legs. It hadn't been the first time she'd felt such a thing after a particularly vivid dream, honestly, and it wasn't like she'd had access to potassium in her daily diet to keep her muscles from cramping up. She hadn't eaten a banana in months.

As she moved to get out of bed and sit up, the pain between her legs was immediate and sharp. She looked down...

Why was she naked? Where were her clothes? Was that a sprinkling of _blood_ on the sheets under her?

 _Oh... God_ , she thought, panicked, realising what it meant.

It wasn't time for her period yet; she still had two weeks to go. It was always possible that it come early because of all of the stress she'd been under from Ron's leaving, though, but for some reason she knew this wasn't the same kind of bleeding as when she had her menses. She'd really lost her virginity.

How was that even possible, though? She'd been in her cot when she'd woken up, naked, but still here in the tent. Surely Harry would have noticed if she'd left on a sleepwalking tour outside, wouldn't he? Even if by some strange chance he hadn't heard her leave, their camp wards would have gone off if she'd crossed them. The only other ways she could have gone missing would have been Disapparition and Portkeying, but those were a noisy business as well. One way or another, Harry would definitely have heard her leaving and would have confronted her about it upon her return. Since he hadn't... Besides, she hadn't felt anything like that weird fish-hook sensation behind her navel at any time during these little 'jaunts' of hers.

Which meant she hadn't left her cot at all. So how was it possible that she could have had sex in Ral's bed at his ancestral home in Corsham?

Maybe she hadn't. Maybe she'd gone to bed naked (although she didn't remember doing so) and used her fingers and done it to herself when she was asleep, dreaming about having sex with Ral. She'd read that a girl could break her own hymen with self-exploration. Examining her fingers, though, she saw no evidence of having masturbated in her sleep – no stickiness, no blood under her nails. Which meant either her dreams were somehow real (which was magically impossible, as far as she knew), or she'd willed her hymen to break in her sleep and it had (which was patently ridiculous).

She gripped her head, confused and upset as the data didn't add up. _I'm really going insane_ , she thought. _All those late-night study sessions, Ron leaving us, being hunted down by genocidal maniacs... I've cracked at last._ Strangely, going mad seemed the only possibility that actually might explain everything. The thought terrified her, though, for her mind was all she really had. If she lost it...

A bath. She could use a good, long soak. It would help with her body's aches and her mind's whirling, and it would ground her so she could think her way through the situation. Reaching into her beaded bag again, she withdrew all she needed to enjoy her bath: soap, Epsom salts, and a fluffy towel.

She grabbed her wand, summoned her beaded bag, and pulled out the bathtub she'd shrunk and stuffed in there for their bathing needs when she'd packed everything in advance for this trip. Returning it to regular size and filling it with hot water using a few charms, she then assured a privacy curtain was put up around the area, and climbed in. As she leaned back against the ceramic end of the clawfoot tub, she closed her eyes.

Images of Ral's touches, the weight of him within her and over her, and his kisses flashed through her memories. Even if it had all been nothing more than a fantasy in her mind, making love to him was unlike anything she'd ever experienced, and it would be something she would never, ever forget.

"Ral," she whispered, sleepily, wishing she were back with him in his room, and that the war, Voldemort, and Ron's abandonment were all the dream instead.

Later, Harry would admit that he'd come back into the tent and paused at the curtain to ask if she was okay after her crying spell... only to believe he'd heard her whisper Ron's name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To answer a question someone PM'd me about: Why would Hermione continue to insist that her constant run-ins with Ral weren't really happening to her?
> 
> It's important to remember that Hermione, in novel canon, denies pretty much everything unless she can explain it. That's her defining character trait: she is the rational sceptic who questions everything and then works through it until she has a scientific/objectively explainable answer for it. Very rarely in the story does she trust information second-hand, except in regards to her educational instruction (and even then, she's constantly challenging the professors). 
> 
> Perhaps the best example of this is when she constantly doubts Harry's pronouncements (i.e. she denies that Thestrals pull the Hogwarts carriages because she can't see them, she still has a smidge of doubt that Voldemort is really back despite Cedric's murder - until the Ministry makes it clear that they are going to do everything they can to shut Harry down & cover-up the disappearances going on, she denies all of Harry's visions of Voldemort - until Arthur is found injured in Book 5 and she has no choice but to admit that Harry knows something about the Dark Lord's movements, she denies Draco is a Death Eater despite his squirrel-ish behaviour all through 6th year, including Katie's curse & Ron's poisoning, etc.).
> 
> As Hermione can't currently explain the why or how of her strange relationship with Ral, and can only go on guess-work at this point, she's coming up with theories in her head. Without access to research materials, however, AND being constantly on the run from Death Eaters/Snatchers, AND having to consider the horcrux problem, AND needing to riddle through Beedle The Bard, AND dealing with her personal drama involving Ron & friends, she just doesn't have much time to dedicate to really puzzling out the thing going on with Ral and these random fantasy jumps. She's a very busy & distracted girl right now.
> 
> This is Hermione, however, and you can be assured she is thinking about the problem when there's time. She doesn't sit idle when there's an enigma to work out. Give her time, she'll figure this one out, too... I promise!


	9. Chapter 9

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**Christmas Eve, 1997** _

_**Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

The night of their lucky escape from Nagini's clutches in Godric's Hollow had left Hermione utterly exhausted. She not only had had to Side-Along Harry to get his unconscious form back to camp, and then use a Hover Charm to move him inside the tent, but she'd spent the last hour watching over him in growing fear. He'd grown quite ill from the effects of the snake's venom that had been pumped into his body, and the dittany she'd used to counter it was doing a good job, but he was still in obvious pain. He tossed and turned with restlessness, mumbling incoherent words - occasionally shouting them. She fretted constantly at his side, checking his temperature and making sure he didn't thrash too violently and reopen his wounds.

The locket had been a problem as well; it had stuck to Harry's chest for some unfathomable reason, so she'd had to use a Severing Charm to remove it, and then a quick Healing Charm and more dittany to fix the skin and stop the bleeding. Currently, it was around her neck, whispering its evil to her. She attempted to tune it out by reciting the facts behind the Goblin Rebellion of 1612, but kept nodding off in the chair she'd set up at Harry's side. This last time, she'd actually fallen out of her seat, hitting the hard canvas floor and hurting her shoulder.

The hateful tears she tried to keep hidden from Harry as often as possible wavered before her eyes again as she dragged her tired body up off the floor. Blast, she was just so bloody sick of it all! Between the constant need to move their camp to throw off the enemy, trying to keep Harry's spirits up, feeling the pressure of coming up with the locations of the Horcruxes, wondering if Ron was ever coming back, and hearing on the WWN of the casualties mounting by the day, it was all too much for her to take on her small shoulders, Gryffindor brave or not.

...And this _bloody_ locket was driving her mad with its constant, buzzing insinuations and suggestions!

She grabbed the cursed item from around her neck and threw it across the tent as hard as she could.

The instant it was off of her, she felt a weight lift from her soul, and her mood vastly improved. However, she also knew they couldn't risk the dangerous artefact being so far away from one of them. She wouldn't put it back on, but it needed to be temporarily stored somewhere safe, where it couldn't affect either of them. Her beaded bag would do.

Wiping the tears from her face, she resignedly set her wand down and crawled across the tent to where the locket lay against the far wall, near her bunk. On her haunches, she paused to stare at the lovely piece of hand-crafted jewellery. It had probably been worth a fortune before Voldemort had gotten his hands on it and corrupted it. Certainly, it should have belonged in a wizarding museum at the very least, as it had been an important piece of history, belonging to Salazar Slytherin at one point.

"Ral," she whispered, "I wish you were here. I need you." His familiar, comforting scent was a phantom memory in her mind.

As she reached out to grab the locket, her vision grew dark along the sides. She sighed with relief as the fugue took her quickly.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

She was standing in a doorway to what appeared to be a large, personal library in a rather upscale home. Books of every colour and size lined two of the four walls. Directly across from her was a giant stone hearth that looked like something from Medieval times; carvings of various battles were cut into the mantle face. A cheery fire was lit within its depths, warming the room.

Her wand was nowhere in sight.

Stepping further into the room, her trainers sunk into the plush Persian carpet. "Hello," she called out. "Is there anyone here?"

There was no answer.

She took in the measure of the room, walking along the walls, inspecting the books. Most of the titles weren't in English, but in a variety of foreign languages. She stopped as she found one that had that same strange triangle-circle-line diagram that had existed on Ignotus Peverell's grave, and wondered again what it might mean.

Just as she was reaching for the book to pull it from the shelf, the sound of running steps approaching her location echoed from outside the door. Glancing about for a place to hide, she decided to duck underneath the large, mahogany reading desk nearby. Quieting her breathing, she tried to remain as silent and still as possible to avoid detection.

The steps slowed and then the door to the library-study was thrown open. Because of the carpet's luxuriant weave, she was unable to hear the person's footsteps at that point, and so had to strain her hearing for the sound of fabric sliding across fabric as the person prowled about the room.

"Mother? Rolph?" a voice she recognized finally called out. There was a baited pause. "Hermione?"

"Ral!" she called, and scampered out from under the desk, sure it was safe. He wouldn't have said her name aloud otherwise. "I'm here!"

As she made her feet, she was quite suddenly embraced within a pair of warm, strong arms. The familiar scent of liquorice and sweet cloves pervaded her senses, calming her nerves. "Gods above and below, I knew you'd come back to me," he murmured against her ear as he held her tight. "My Hermione."

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, nuzzling her face into his chest, "I can't control this."

He let out a deep, shaky breath. "I figured, sweet girl." With a pull and a bend of his knees, he had her up and in his arms, bridal style, and carried her to a large, leather sofa situated before the hearth. He sat with her in his lap, waved his wand over his shoulder to shut and lock the door to the room, and then tossed his wand aside to reach up and cup her cheek. "Look at me," he bid.

She met his beautiful, blue gaze. There was relief reflected in his eyes – and pain. "It's only been a few weeks, but I missed you," he admitted, leaning forward to place a tender kiss to her lips, "and I worried about you."

With trembling fingers, she touched his face, realizing how very wrong she was to believe this wasn't real. "I'd convinced myself that last time had to be a dream, too, but now... you're real, aren't you? This is all real. Somehow, I'm magically being drawn to you, across the distance."

He shook his head. "I don't know how, I swear it. I haven't cast any spells to call you to me. You just appear when I need you the most." He kissed her again. "Like now. Salazar's bones, I need you!"

"I need you, too," she replied, very much in tune with his thinking. She'd ached for him for the last several weeks, her body craving a repeat of what they'd done together on her previous visit.

In a quick turn, he had her on her back, flat against the leather couch, and he was over her. His mouth devoured hers, even as his hands roamed everywhere, leaving no place untouched. As before, Hermione's thoughts simply deserted her, and there was only sensation left - a need for him that went soul deep, and made her wild heart tremble. Clothes were divested with eagerness, and her legs were spread, and then he was in her again, stretching her open with the thick width of him, driving into her with a fierce, powerful rhythm that pushed her up the sofa. Bracing a hand against the couch arm, she rode out his desperation, wincing when he pressed so deep that he was crowded against the very end of her channel. His mouth greedily stole her breath, his hands held her hips in a tight grip.

It didn't take long for either of them, their desperation for the other a powerful aphrodisiac. "Come," he begged her, reaching between them to rub her tiny clit with an expert touch. "Come, my sweet girl, come!" His other hand reached up to pinch a nipple, and the stimulation was too much. With a wail, Hermione flew into the sky, the pleasure wrapping itself around her in soft wings.

With a muted groan, Ral found his release on the tail end of hers. His hips continued to rock back and forth as he released up inside her.

When his shudders finally stopped, he collapsed on top of her, bracing his weight on an elbow to try to keep from crushing her. "Hermione," he breathed against her neck in hot pants, "where do you go when you leave me? Why does it hurt so much when you disappear? Who are you to me?"

Wrapping her naked limbs around him, she held Ral close, unsure how to reply.

They were quiet for a while, each lost in thought. When her arm started to get that queer pins-and-needles sensation, however, Hermione shifted, breaking the moment. She sighed, resigned to have the conversation she'd been dreading. "Ral, I don't know why this is happening to us, but it hurts me, too, when I leave you. I feel like I'm in mourning whenever I return to where I was. Like... every time we're together is the last time, and I'm always saying goodbye."

He nodded and lifted his head to look her in the eyes. "It's the same for me, but it's so much more. I also feel like there's... time... years that separate us from each other, and I'm aware of them, but I can't get them back for some reason."

Worried he'd think her crazy, Hermione hesitated in telling him one of her theories, but he coaxed her until she finally fessed up. "Well, I'm not much for believing in such things, but... do you suppose we might have had a past life together?"

His eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "I'm not sure." He narrowed his eyes in consideration. "That almost feels right, but... not quite. I feel like I knew you even before the train, but not in a past sense, but a future one. Like I was waiting my whole life for that moment to happen only I didn't know it until it did. Every time we've met since has been the same. I seem to just feel when you're going to appear. Something in me has an overwhelming desire to be in a certain place at a certain time, and when I show up, you do, too. It's like... I'm divining your appearances."

"Or you're magically drawing me to you without realising it," she offered. "Only, I can't for the life of me figure out how you're doing it."

Ral adjusted his hips, and she gasped to feel him still thick and heavy inside her. Her pelvis was canted at the perfect angle to allow him to stay within her, and he took advantage of that to begin seducing her a second time.

"I don't know how this is happening either," he confessed between small kisses, "but this connection I feel to you is the strongest thing I've ever known, Hermione." He rocked in and out of her to a slow, lazy rhythm. "Through it, I know you're mine - that you've _always_ been mine, even when we've been apart. I know that what I feel for you will follow me for the rest of my life, and I'll never feel this way for anyone else." He lowered his face until he was hidden against her throat, as if he were afraid of revealing so much of himself. His whole body shivered as he made love to her again. "I... Hermione, I love you," he whispered. "I think I've always loved you, and... I know I always will."

They made love a second time, and it was slow and sweet.

In the afters, they redressed each other, and there was sadness to the act, as if they both knew their time was running out and she would be leaving again soon. "I still have your clothes from the last time. You left them behind."

So, it was true. They weren't meeting in a dream world, but in real life.

_With magic, anything's possible._

The tears rushed down her cheeks as darkness began creeping into the sides of her vision. Throwing her arms around Ral's neck, she clung to her lover, praying to stay with him, even as she felt the world begin to dissolve away around her.

"Ral, I love you, too," she murmured into his ear, pressing a gentle kiss to it.

Everything went black.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

She was sitting on the floor of the tent, the locket was within reach, but she could barely see it through the haze of her tears. The crushing sorrow of leaving Ral once more felt too heavy to bear, and she leaned on her palms, sobbing, all the time aware that Harry was still unconscious behind her, shouting the occasional, "NO!" aloud as he struggled through his nightmare.

Two hours later, she was back in the chair at his side, her emotional storm calmed for the moment, and the locket safely stowed in her beaded bag. Harry was still asleep, but his fever was gone, his wounds healing nicely. Dawn was coming; she could see the changes of the light through the tent canvas.

It was a new day outside, but somehow, it felt empty to her.


	10. Chapter 10

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**Mid-April, 1998** _

_**Shell Cottage, Tinworth, Cornwall** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

The next few months were a blur of happenings: they'd found Godric Gryffindor's sword, Ron had returned to them, and they'd destroyed their first Horcrux – that wicked locket was gone forever. They'd learned about the Deathly Hallows from Luna's father, been captured by Snatchers, taken to Malfoy Manor, and Hermione had been tortured to within an inch of her life by Bellatrix Lestrange. They'd buried Dobby, discovered the truth of the possible Horcrux hidden in Gringotts, had the Elder Wand's existence confirmed, and found out what Voldemort was _really_ after.

Ever since then, Hermione had been convalescing, and Ron had been trying to convince Harry to go after the Wand of Death, rather than the Horcruxes, as Dumbledore had tasked they do. There was a fight between them on that point, and Hermione had sided firmly with Harry. Sadly, that split had become a point of contention between them, reopening old wounds.

Ron's return had really mixed things up on a personal level for Hermione, too. Yes, she still cared for her him as her best friend, but the infatuation she'd previously felt for him had completely faded even before they'd left Grimmauld Place last year. Unfortunately, it seemed as though the complete opposite was true of Ron. She didn't dare discourage him, though, as he'd been rather clingy upon his rejoining her and Harry, and Harry had taken great comfort from his friend's reappearance. She feared that if things became severely strained between her and Ron again, it would cause him to run off once more, and that would most definitely hurt Harry – and possibly cripple their chances of defeating Voldemort. So, for the time being, she allowed him the extra hugs and the longing looks he threw her way when he didn't think she noticed. It made her uncomfortable, but she endured for Harry's sake.

Now, lying in the bed in the room she shared with Luna that had been graciously provided by Fleur and Bill in Shell Cottage, she stared up at the ceiling and considered Harry's plan for breaking into Bellatrix's vault. It was extremely risky, but she thought necessary. They couldn't ignore the chance that the vault contained another Horcrux, but Hermione couldn't help but wonder what other horrors might lurk in the mad woman's private stash. What potential traps had she laid to keep something like a piece of Voldemort's soul safe? Surely, it would be defended by some of the darkest magic, like the locket had been.

For not the first time, she wished Ral was there with them, helping them in this fight. As far as she'd been able to determine, however, he'd never taken Dumbledore's deal to Lupin, McGonagall, or any other Order member, and was still firmly on the side of the Death Eaters. She'd carefully probed Bill and Fleur on the subject over the last week, asking vague questions about potential defectors to their side in the months since she, Harry, and Ron had disappeared from Order business, but they'd both replied in the negative. No one had stepped forward to offer a changing allegiance or their services to act as double agent.

To be fair, Ral had warned her he probably wouldn't cross lines, feeling it his duty to protect his brother first and foremost, and it wasn't as if she could have abandoned the Horcrux hunt to stand guard over Rolph in some Order safe house. Still, she couldn't help but feel deeply disappointed and truly worried that he hadn't changed sides by now, when it was clear things were coming to a head. In the battle that was sure to come, the other Order members would consider Ral their enemy, and some she knew had no compulsion about using nasty curses on a Death Eater. He could he be injured or worse. The thought frightened her.

What she _wanted_ to do was to tell everyone about Ral – including Ron. She wanted the world to know his story, to understand him, and to know she was in love with him. Very soon, she would tell them, she thought. Her intuition told her as much. The feeling was very much like the one she'd had during third year when she'd been entrusted with the Time-Turner. Back then, Minerva McGonagall had warned her never to breathe a word of the truth of her stewardship of the powerful magical device to anyone, for time magic was known to have very bad side effects, and there was the potential for its abuse by those with less of a sense of responsibility. She'd lied all year long to Harry and Ron about that secret as a result, even though she'd hated doing it. It had been necessary, however. In the end, she'd revealed the device to Harry as she'd been meant to – not too early to cause him to want to use it before it was time, and not too late to save Buckbeak and Sirius. It was a delicate balance, playing with time like that.

The secret of Ral felt much the same: a secret abiding time for its revelation.

Time...

In between everything else going on, she'd given the matter of her strange fugue-like jaunts some thought, and she was sure the answer was in what her lover had said about feeling as if he knew her, but not in a past sense. She'd looked through some of the books she'd brought with her in her beaded bag (Ron hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said she'd taken along a library's worth of reading, but one never knew when one might need reference materials), and had re-familiarized herself with time theory. It made her wonder: could her use of the Time-Turner back in third year have altered her physiology or her magical aura? Was she travelling through time to get to Ral? Was that what he'd meant by knowing her in a _future_ sense?

Just thinking so strongly of Ral again brought back the phantom memory of the scent she associated only with him: liquorice and sweet cloves. How she loved that combination now. It brought her comfort and warmth...

She smiled as the darkness crept in from the sides, overtaking her sight.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

She was in one of the hotel rooms at the Leaky Cauldron. She recognised the room from her overnight stay during the Christmas holiday of her second year, when she and her parents had booked a room for a night to experience a magical hotel before shopping in Diagon Alley the next day for Christmas gifts. The same goldenrod and buttercup yellow curtains framed a large picture window on one wall, and the matching bedding decorated the large, comfortable bed opposite the window. The same small side table and wooden chair was positioned beside the window, with the traditional parchment and ink and quill arrangement atop it just waiting to be put to use.

She walked to the window and stared down onto the Alley. It was raining outside, and a few witches and wizards moved up and down the cobbled street some under magical black umbrellas, others with protective charms cast over their heads. The air around her felt like the chill of autumn, not that of spring. Odd.

A pair of strong, comforting arms came about her from behind, and a warm, firm body pressed in tight against her. The scent of liquorice and cloves tickled her nose.

"Hello, my love. I've missed you."

"Ral," she gave a relieved sigh and leaned into him. "I've missed you, too. It's been so long. Four months, and so much has happened—"

"Four months?" He leaned back and let her go. "Hermione, it's been eleven months."

She turned and looked up into his handsome face, seeking confirmation. His arctic blue eyes were shadowed with confusion. "That's not possible," she countered. "We last met in December."

He shook his head. "Last October. It's September, now, almost a year later."

She took a step back, shocked by his words... and by how much older he appeared, as she took a good, long look at him now. His face had filled in, his age somehow closer to the fully-developed male he was destined to become in another five or so years when he hit his mid-twenties. His hair was longer, too, the fringe hanging just below his jaw. She knew hair grew a half-inch every month, or thereabouts, and from the length… it looked as though he sported a good six inches of new growth.

"But it was December for me. Christmas Eve," she weakly protested. "It's should be April now."

Ral shook his head. "We last met on Halloween afternoon, and it's the nineteenth of September today."

The nineteenth of September? Her birthday.

A sinking suspicion began crept through her mind. "What date was it the first time we met?"

He began to look a little uncomfortable. "The nineteenth of September, two years ago."

Two years from his perspective, one and some change from hers.

They were out of synch… which meant they weren't in the same present space, as she'd suspected.

"What was it you said last time?" she asked him, concentrating, recalling his exact words. "Something about years that separate us from each other. 'I'm aware of them,' you said, 'but I can't get them back for some reason.'" She stared up at him in shock, finally understanding. "Time does separate us. What year is it for you?"

Ral shook his head, confused by her line of questioning. "It's 1981. Why is that important?"

Hermione's knees trembled. "Merlin, no," she whispered, putting together the pieces and seeing the whole puzzle. She finally knew what was happening to them.

Ral had been right all along. It was a matter of time.

Ral caught her a second before her knees gave out and she hit the floor. "What's wrong?" he demanded.

She closed her eyes, realising the significance. "We met on my birthday in 1979." The exact day and year, in fact. He'd been leaving Hogwarts to go home to Corsham so he could commit suicide in his own bed.

He'd gone to die the day she was born.

But she'd stopped him on that train, convinced him to return to Hogwarts. She'd changed history by jumping through time… and accidentally linked their souls in the doing. Their relationship _had_ been fated all along.

But why had she been drawn across time to him, specifically? Why not her own parents, or the Weasleys, or the Potters? Why Ral? Who was he to her, really?

"So, we met on your birthday. Why does that matter?" he asked her, exasperated.

"What's your full name?" she asked him, trying to make sense of their personal connection. 

He seemed taken aback by the question, but answered. "Rabastan Alastair Lestrange. Why?"

R.A.L.

Ral.

Lestrange.

She gave a sob of despair and slapped her hands over her eyes.

Lestrange!

No wonder she knew him - she knew his eyes, his chuckle, his distinctive liquorice and clove scent because he'd been the Death Eater who'd challenged at her in the Department of Mysteries, who'd reached for her only to be elbowed in the face by Harry, and later to be thrown back into the grandfather clock by Harry's _Stupefy_ in the Time Room, knocked unconscious.

He'd known her then. It had been obvious by the way he'd stroked across her magical aura with his own, igniting a sensual heat for him – even as he'd trained his wand on her friends. What they'd done now, here in the past, had carried across the years to that moment in the Department of Mysteries… where it had all begun.

It was a circular logic loop, as time always was.

"Ral, I know why this has happened to us," she said matter-of-factly. "We're caught in a magical time loop – a closed timeline curve. We're living Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle that governs time travel."

His eyes widened and he frowned. "Was that Greek or Russian, love? Because what you just said made absolutely no sense to me."

"I'm from your future," she said, realizing she was breaking all sort of laws in the telling, but knowing it wouldn't at all matter if her supposition was true. "Before I came here today, I was in my own time - in April, 1998."

He leaned back and stared at her as if she'd grown a second head. _"_

_What?"_


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter underwent a major revision from the original fest piece and was split up into several chapters because of the length of explanation needed.
> 
> All of the scientific discussion in this chapter and the next chapter (hot dark matter, luminous matter, Euclidean space, the different types of energy, etc.) is drawn directly from real and current scientific theory. I simply manipulated that science to explain how things work in the HP universe (i.e. time-travel, how spells are cast in HP, the root energy of the Unforgivables, etc.).
> 
> Chaos is discussed in HP canon briefly in regards to being the 'stuff' that poltergeists (like Peeves) are made from. Aside from that, however, we have no idea where it comes from or how it originates in the HP universe, as JKR never tells us. I capitalized on that for this fic (head canon!).

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

"How much do you know about time travel?" Hermione asked.

Ral shrugged. "Not much aside from the one big rule that you don't do it."

She sighed, but bucked to the challenge of teaching Ral about space-time theory. Lectures were her thing, after all! "Do you remember the subject of Time-Turners from History of Magic class, covered generally in sixth year?"

He nodded. "Rudimentary facts, sure. I know the Unspeakables made them about one-hundred years ago, and their early experiments were failures. A few witches and wizards died horribly when they came back to the present."

"The most famous of which was Madam Eloise Mintumble, yes," Hermione concurred. "What else do you remember?"

Ral shrugged. "By the 1920's, the Ministry decided it was too dangerous to allow time travel, so they outlawed it entirely. They rounded up all the Time-Turners and locked them away for safe keeping."

"Not all of them," she let him in on the secret that she and her Head of House shared. "Back then, the Unspeakables could take their work home with them, as they tended to keep bizarre hours and were frequently inspired while off-duty. That's outlawed today, of course, but in the early days, they were a little freer with permissions. Consequently, there were a few stray Time-Turners that kept out of the Ministry's hands during the round-up. One of them, in fact, was passed down as a family heirloom to a Hogwarts Professor, who was the granddaughter of one such Unspeakable."

He shrugged. "Okay, so what does that have to do with this magical loop we're supposedly caught in?"

She took a deep breath, wincing just slightly as she was about to expose one of her favourite teachers to scrutiny. "That Hogwarts Professor was Minerva McGonagall. She loaned me her Time-Turner during my third year, and I think I was exposed to too much hot dark matter from the device that year. Clearly, it altered me and that's the reason I'm running back and forth through time, in a nutshell."

Ral's jaw dropped open. "Old Minnie broke the law? What a bloody hypocrite! She was always on me about rule-breaking, and all the time, she was hiding an outlawed item in her bloomers!" He glanced askance at her. "And no offense, but they let a _child_ have access to something as powerful as a Time-Turner? What the bloody hell were they thinking?"

Slightly offended, Hermione's spine straightened a bit over that. "I was given all of the prerequisite warnings, and handled the responsibility with great maturity, I'll have you know. I was also closely monitored by Professor McGonagall, and used it only so I could take multiple subjects in school – never for any other reason. If not for that, I don't think I'd be here right now."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

 _Here we go,_ she thought, realising that in order to explain their current predicament, she'd have to clarify what Ral knew on the subject of Time, since it was barely scratched in regular school courses. "I think I'm going to have to give you the crash course on Time-Turners and time theory. I was required to do loads of research on the subject years ago before I'd be entrusted with the care of a Time-Turner, so I'm fairly up on the facts. Unfortunately, there is no other way you'll understand just how dire our situation is unless you understand the science that makes it all possible."

"So, you're forcing me back to school again, eh?" Ral joked.

"Seems it," Hermione agreed. "Okay, so let's start with the most basic facts: Time-Turners are devices created by the Unspeakables to allow wizards and witches to travel back and forth through the fourth-dimension of Time, the other three dimensions being Length, Width, and Height – what the Muggles call 'Euclidean space'. We naturally exist in Euclidean space and can manipulate it. Time, the fourth dimension, affects _us_ every second of every hour. That's why we age. However, until the invention of the Time-Turners, we couldn't affect time. Once the Time-Turners were built, it changed that. We were now able to move back and forth through time and mess with events. With me so far?"

Ral nodded. "No dummy here, love."

She chuckled. "I know. So, at the most basic level, Time-Turners work because of a combination of very strong magic and a substance Muggle scientists call 'hot dark matter'. Dark matter is a substance that exists in the universe that does not reflect light. We can't see it with the naked eye. It's opposite is 'luminous matter' – basically, us, the trees, the birds... everything you can see with your eyes."

"If you can't see something, how do you know it exists?" Ral asked, confused.

Hermione considered a good example within the wizarding world. "You can't see people hidden by Disillusionment Charms, but you know they're there when they brush against your hand, don't you? The basic spell for that charm draws on the same energy created by dark matter in the universe to bend light in such a way that it hides whatever is behind it."

"Ah, got it," her partner said," but how is any of this relevant to you jumping through time?"

"I'm getting to it. Patience is a virtue, you know."

He flashed her a naughty grin and waggled his eyebrows. "Sorry, love, but I'm an advocate for instant gratification."

Rolling her eyes, she gave him a long, suffering look, and he sobered, respecting her need to treat the situation with some seriousness. "Anyway, _hot_ dark matter is a special type of dark matter that moves very close to the speed of light," she reiterated. "It moves so fast, in fact, that it is not affected by electromagnetic forces or strong nuclear forces."

At Ral's befuddled expression, she realised she'd have to restructure her presentation a bit. Everything was magic to a wizard or witch; forces, gravitational pull, and the structure of atoms were not part of Hogwarts' curriculum and were concepts as foreign to them as Divination's idea of the 'Inner Eye' was to her.

"Basically, hot dark matter is something that moves so fast that very few things in the universe can slow it down. Because of its incredible speed, it generates a lot of energy. We call this energy 'dark energy'. Dark energy was believed by the Unspeakables of a century ago to be a powerful fuel source for casting new types of spells—much more powerful spells than anything we've known before—if it could be collected."

In many ways, she thought, dark energy was the rocket fuel of the magical world. With it, things thought impossible before could be realistically achieved.

Ral's brow furrowed. "I thought spells were fuelled by the energy that came from the soul of a witch or wizard."

"The human soul can be a battery for fuelling magic, yes," Hermione agreed, "and as I'll explain in a bit, the soul is integral in the whole time-travel gig, but there are other types of energy in the cosmos that we use for most of our spells. If we'd relied solely on our own souls to fuel our magic, we'd run the risk of burning out our magic or draining dry our lifeforces. By borrowing from Nature, we subsidize our energy needs without harming ourselves. For instance, we gather the gravitational energy of the earth to cast flight spells, like _Wingardium Leviosa_ , and for spells that cushion falls, like _Arresto Momentum_. We use kinetic energy and elastic energy, both derived from motion, for spells that require us to change something's basic properties, like with Transfiguration, Glamour Charms, and spells like _Alohamora_ , and we use radiant energy from the sun for spells that cast light, like _Lumos_ and _Periculum_."

"And the Unforgivables?" her companion dared ask.

Hermione looked down at her shoes, uncomfortable speaking of those awful spells. "The Imperius and the Cruciatus are fuelled by electrical energy from the air. That energy is funneled by the caster in a specific way to disrupt electrical and chemical patterns in the brain of a victim. In the case of _Imperio_ , it triggers a flood of endorphins in a person's brain so as to induce a willful submission in them, and for _Crucio_ , it attacks the nociceptors in the body to trigger intense pain."

She shifted, remembering the day Barty Crouch Junior, disguised as Professor Moody, had demonstrated the three Unforgivables to a class of impressionable students in fourth year. Until that moment, Hermione had despised people on occasion (people like Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson, for instance), but she'd never hated. In the moment Crouch had used those curses with glee to end a life, she'd discovered what hate felt like - that sick, roiling dread in one's belly coupled with the fiery need to punish in her heart. That day had changed her forever, hardened her... prepared her for the reality of death.

"And _Avada Kedavra_?" Ral prodded, curious.

Sighing, she gave in to explaining the last curse. "The Killing Curse is a special category all unto itself: it's a spell that acts against the very fabric of Nature, because it nullifies the energy of life and gives nothing back to the universe in the doing. Energy is not created by the spell, only destroyed - which breaks the law of conservation of energy. It leaves behind less energy in the universe than there was before, which shrinks it a bit and weakens our universe's living web. That's the reason poltergeists can cross over into this reality – because when we use spells like the Killing Curse, the energy balance in the universe is tipped, creating a tear, like a bad cut. Poltergeists can come through that tear and reap havoc here, spreading Chaos by using up energy and not replacing it. Basically, using A.K. is an abomination to Nature as it helps unravel the fabric of the universe slowly, bit by bit. That's why, in order to cast it, you have to pull the energy from your own soul to fuel it – Nature won't help you by providing you the energy you need to commit such a heinous crime against her. Hence the reason casting the Killing Curse also damages your soul when you use it – it splinters your life energy."

 _And drains it a little bit at a time every time it's used,_ she thought, finally understanding in that moment the identity of the comatose patient lying in the room next to hers at St. Mungo's... and why he was in that state from the start.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Demiguise is a real canon HP creature. I did not make it up, although I did make up the explanation for its ability to turn invisible here.
> 
> I threw in some 70's slang from my youth - nostalgia!

**~.~.~.~.~.~.~**

Ral's reaction was unexpected; he seemed very disturbed by her revelation about the Unforgivables.

"I... I never knew any of that," he admitted, sounding a bit shaken and rubbing at his left forearm, over his Dark Mark. "Thank Merlin I've never cast one, but Rolph... I know he has." He glanced up at her, clearly rattled by what she'd told him. "So the Killing Curse is an abomination of Nature that drains your soul when you use it, huh? So, what, you end up like a ghost when you die, trapped for eternity on this side?"

She shrugged, unsure. He bought up a good point that she was sure had yet to be considered by some member of the Department of Mysteries who worked in the Death Room. "Who knows? Perhaps you become a Dementor, instead. That might actually explain where they come from, since no one really has an idea as to their origins or their reproductive strategy."

"Shizz, why don't they teach that kind of information to us in school?" Ral demanded, wide-eyed and clearly freaked out. "Maybe if they stated it like that, the Dark Lord wouldn't be so quick to use those kinds of spells."

Hermione considered that for half a second, then shook her head. "Doubtful. I think there's enough Chaos in You-Know-Who's soul, given how much it's splintered, that it just may be possible that he's acting in Chaos' interest. Maybe he's not even human anymore, but nothing more than an agent of Chaos, like Peeves, only a much darker version."

That was something she'd have to think more about, maybe ask Minerva...

They were quiet for a bit after that, both turning over their own thoughts on the matter. The antique German cuckoo clock on the wall ticked away the seconds of silence until, it seemed, Ral couldn't stand it any longer. "Fascinating though this has been," he said, finally breaking through the awkwardness, "I still don't understand how it is you're travelling through time without the use of a Time-Turner, love."

Time travel. Right. She'd gone far off-course there... although what they'd discussed about abominations would certainly come back around in this discussion, too, she knew.

"You're right. We were discussing the Unspeakables of a century ago. They wanted to crack the mystery of capturing and using dark energy for their needs, specifically to defeat Euclidean space and master Time. The first thing they had to do was actually catch some hot dark matter, though. However, as I told you, it moves faster than we can see it, so it's difficult to capture. By studying a Demiguise, however—a creature that has evolved a very specific talent for running away from danger by bending luminous matter in such a way that it actually _becomes_ dark matter—the Unspeakables figured out how to extract hot dark matter. Basically, they butchered the poor things to get what they needed, which is why the Demiguise is an endangered species now."

"Very shady," Ral said, looking sincerely saddened by the loss. Yet another reason, she thought, to think him perfect; his compassionate nature resonated with hers. "So what spell did they use to steal the hot dark matter from the beasties?"

"A very powerful version of _Petrificus Totalus_ ," she replied. "They called it the 'Medusa Spell'. It basically petrifies the animal in the traditional sense, turning it into stone. The hot dark matter is then extracted from the dead creature." She shook her head, equally as disgusted as her lover over the cruelty of some humans. Firmly against the idea of testing on animals for any purpose, Hermione likened the doing so to the same category as abusing house-elves and hunting werewolves—it was simply sadism to reaffirm humanity's alpha-ness on the food chain. It wasn't as if those Unspeakables couldn't have determined a way to borrow the hot dark matter from the Demiguise without causing it harm; it was just more expedient and "cost-effective" to butcher them and steal it instead. Killing for profit. The thought made her ill. "It's tragically ironic that once they stole the hot dark matter, however, they were clueless as to how to use it to travel through time," she pointed out. "For that, they needed to consider Muggle mathematics, which was already taking leaps and bounds into solving the problem at that time. So for a few years, they stored their captured matter down in the Department of Mysteries, in a specially warded room we now call the Time Room, and they sat and pondered the idea that they had to swallow their prides and seek help from non-magical folk."

Ral barked a cynical laugh and leaned back against one of the wooden posts of the bed, settling back for the rest of the tale. "Bet they loved that. And it's strange to think a little guy like a Demiguise is the key to time travel." He shook his head, slightly amused. "That's like saying Pygmy Puffs hold the secret to the universe."

Hermione planted her bum against the small writing desk to give her feet a rest and shrugged. "Maybe they do. I don't speak Pygmy Puff, do you? How do we know they aren't discussing how best to survive the next Extinction Event?"

"Extinction Event?"

Pushing her bangs out of her eyes, she shook her head and said, "The natural disaster and biological fitness talk can wait. Let's just stick to the topic of time travel for now."

"Right," Ral agreed, grinning wickedly. "Then we can get on with... other things. Because I don't know about you, love, but I can think of a much better use of our time."

Hermione gaped at him. Was that all he thought about whenever she was near? Godric, the man was over-sexed! "Just hold your royal horses, Lestrange."

Her lover made a whinnying noise and pretended to pull back on some imaginary reins.

She laughed at his crazy antics.

Merlin, who'd have guessed that Rabastan Lestrange was not just clever and sexy, but witty, too? Then again, he _had_ teased her that night in the Department of Mysteries, hadn't he? Stroking over her aura like that... naughty, sneaky man.

She gave an inward sigh in resignation. He really was perfect for her, wasn't he?

"You're incorrigible," she cheerfully chastised.

Ral's grin was big and white, as if he took pride in that fact.

"As I was saying," she continued with her explanation, trying to ignore his cheekiness, "the Unspeakables working on the theory of time travel eventually consulted a Muggle physicist named Albert Einstein in the early 1900's. At the time, he was mathematically working through the issue of a general theory of relativity—that is, a scientific theory to explain how gravity works and its influence on everything in the universe, including time. Using Einstein's theories, and taking into account what they already knew about the magical world and how it affects the universe, the Unspeakables were able to come up with an idea for how to make time travel a reality. Basically, they'd decided to use hot dark matter to super-charge an Apparition spell so that instead of the spell sending you through a point in space to another in the exact same moment, it would instead propel you _backwards_ through space-time."

"Do I detect cynicism from you, pet?" Ral asked, crossing his arms and leaning a shoulder against the bed post.

Was she that obvious, or did Ral just know her that well already?

"You do," she admitted. "The first experiments had predictably tragic conclusions that could have been avoided with a little forethought. It was the kind of splinching only read about in horror books."

She shook her head, still amazed at the foolish risks taken by the supposed 'top experts' in their branches of magic then. What those wizards had done was as dangerous and stupid a move, she thought, as the Muggle physicists in the 1940's who had tested the first atom bomb, not knowing whether it's explosion would ignite the entire atmosphere or not, but going through with it at full-steam ahead anyway. Some men, she thought, would hazard anything for personal glory, even the safety of the entire human race, it seemed.

Which was the whole point of Voldemort's war, wasn't it?

"In any case, at that point the Unspeakables finally realised that they'd have to come up with a way to control the speed of hot dark matter—specifically, it's tendency to want to stay at the speed of light once it's released. Slowing it down is extremely difficult and if one is not precise in doing so, one gets torn in half or loses body parts. Those parts are then spread all over the world and across various times, depending upon the exact moment of their loss. The first organic experiments were done on livestock that were roughly the same size as humans or bigger—sheep, cows... hence the awful cattle mutilations that, for the last century, Muggles across the globe have believed to be perpetrated by aliens from outer space."

"Couldn't they just slow down the hot dark matter by using the same nullifying spell they used to extract it from the Demiguise to begin with?" he asked. "Seems common sense to me."

Hermione smiled at how quick her wizard's mind worked. There was nothing more attractive to her than a man who could keep up in a verbal exchange, even if the subject matter was practically foreign to him.

The reason, she was beginning to see, was that Ral actually _listened_ , rather than simply waited for his turn to talk. He didn't have to be an expert on space-time dynamics, but he'd picked up the gist by simply paying attention. That skill made him stand out in the crowd of other men of her close acquaintance, most of whom were fixated on hearing only empty flattery, sexual innuendo, and the latest Quidditch scores. Not to mention, it was charming that Ral was so focussed on her and their discussion. That kind of consideration made her feel as if her thoughts were important to him. He was, she thought, vastly more mature than others in her circle of friends, which only drew her in faster and harder and made her want to stay here with him forever.

Something, she now knew she could never do.

Her good mood plummeted, replaced with the hollow, sick feeling that had plagued her earlier, when she'd first discovered his identity and she'd put the pieces of their bizarre tale together. The ever-present awareness of time drawing the curtain down upon their story weighed heavily upon her heart.

_Not yet. There's still a little more time..._

She had to finish this, so he would understand and not be left wondering for decades why they couldn't be together. This was the only gift she had left to give Ral—an explanation so he could find closure once she was gone.

"That's exactly what the Unspeakables did," she told him, sticking to the account. "Which is why the hot dark matter appears as grains of sand when you look at a Time-Turner."

Clearly, he was impressed. "Slick. I take it the Petrifying doesn't have the same effect on the hot dark matter as it does us, though, or else they'd be rendered inert. No activity, no energy."

Despite her melancholy, Hermione was helpless not to smile a bit at her uncanny lover's ability to see patterns that most other people missed. "You're right. The hot dark matter isn't really petrified, not to the core, anyway. _Nothing_ can really stop them on a permanent basis, because of their incredible energy levels. Instead, they're constantly vibrating, shaking off the Petrify spell. Which is why it needs to be continually re-cast upon them if you want to hold onto them."

"But no one really has the ability to do that without exhausting themselves, you said earlier," Ral stated. "And nothing replenishes its energy fast enough to..." He paused, and his expression changed to one of sudden enlightenment. "Ah, I see. They built a machine to do it for them—the Time-Turner."

She nodded, impressed by his logic leap. "It was designed with the help of a goblin horologist, a master of watch-making. At the behest of the Unspeakables, he was brought in on the project and tasked to craft an enchanted object that could store its own energy to fuel the continual Petrify spell on the hot dark matter. The brilliance of the design is in its multi-layered rings and its spinning motion. As long as someone spins the Time-Turner's hourglass once a day, the device stores up kinetic energy. That energy is the fuel used to cast the continual Petrify spell. That's why there are Unspeakables assigned to the Time Room now—not to study the science any longer, but to care for the Time-Turners."

"And when one wants to travel through time, I suppose the spinning of the rings lets the hot dark matter go so it can do its thing," Ral stated.

Hermione nodded. "The Time-Turner's pendant is an hourglass shape that turns on an axis. It has a winding pin and a spinning pin set opposite each other. As you wind the device with the winding pin, you build-up kinetic energy in the device. When you spin the dial with the spinning pin, two things happen: the first is that the device releases the Petrify spell on the hot dark matter, allowing it to accelerate towards the speed of light—which is what fuels time travel. The second is that it uses the kinetic energy you've built up by winding the pin to cast a simultaneous Apparition spell and a powerful _Protego_ spell, to allow the person holding onto the Time-Turner to jump backwards through time and to remain unharmed while doing so."

Ral frowned. "How does the Time-Turner know exactly how far back to go and when to stop?"

This she knew well from her days during third year, hopping around. "One turn of the spinning pin equals about one sixty-minute period or thereabouts."

"And it allows only for _backwards_ travel?" Ral asked, considering that. "Then how do you jump forward to where you started from, if you're from my future?"

This was the tricky part that had Hermione's mind whirling over the implications. "Usually, a time-traveller is supposed to wait for their time-travelling self to catch up to the exact moment they left to prevent the hot dark matter's energy from being used up. And they rarely go back further than twenty-four hours in a single jump because of the massive energy required just to go that far. However..."

"Yes?" he prodded her, when she remained silent for a moment.

"I went back years... and I haven't had to wait each jump back and forth. I go back instantly. Basically, I'm moving against the physical laws of the universe and using unnatural magic to accomplish that," she replied.

Ral frowned, trying to understand her implication. She knew the moment he got it by the look of horror that crossed his face. "You're saying that you're an abomination of Nature, too, aren't you?"

Hermione nodded, looking back down at her feet. "I've become one, it seems."

"Holy fuck, somehow you've _become_ a Time-Turner! You're fuelling the jumps back _and_ forth with your own magic, aren't you?" Ral quickly crossed to her, took her in his arms. "It's draining your soul's energy, isn't it?"

"I think... it's draining both of us, actually." She drew back, tilted her head so she could meet his eye. "Our souls are linked, Ral. We have been since the accident in the Department of Mysteries during my time. We were both in the Time Room when a cabinet was hit by a stray spell, exploding the contents inside it. A few moments later, I was hit by a different spell that knocked me out, but I healed later at the hospital. I'm not sure what caused your injuries that night, but they were worse than mine. You were brought to St. Mungo's in a coma. I don't know if you've ever woken up from it in my original time, but if you haven't, it's a good bet it's because of this connection between us."

He blinked, completely thrown for a six. "Me? What? How?"

"The night of that fight in the Ministry, the last of the Time-Turners were in the Time Room with us, and when the cabinet was smashed, they were broken. All the hot dark matter inside of them spread everywhere. It got up my nose and irritated it. Meanwhile, you were injured that same night, knocked unconscious by a spell in the Time Room. You lay on the floor, bleeding. I think you were standing too close to the cabinet when it blew. I don't know the extent of your injuries, but I do recall seeing blood all around you. I remember breathing deeply as I passed by you, smelling your clove cigarettes... then _my_ nose started bleeding, too. I think that was the moment we became linked... by Blood Magic."

He leaned away from her, his expression a cross between panic and repugnance.

Something very much like guilt and disappointment twisted hard within Hermione's guts. It wasn't her fault what had inadvertently happened that night, but she knew the implication of Blood Magic bonds from her readings. So, it seemed, did Ral. She stammered a bit as she explained her theory to him, her voice as shaky as her heart.

"Y-you probably know that Blood Magic is one of the most potent types of binding and sealing magicks in the world and that like the Killing Curse, its purpose is to do something against the laws of Nature—that is, it binds life to an unnatural purpose. It used to be incorporated into ancient marriage vows by pure-blood wizards and witches to ensure fidelity, to prevent breeding bastards, especially the half-blood kind."

"It controls one's loyalty—yeah, that much I know from how the Dark Lord operates," Ral stated with a cynical snort. "Blood magic is one of his favourite ways of controlling the Death Eaters." He held up his left forearm, indicating the sinister tattoo under his sleeve. His disgust over having been branded was evident. "A drop of his blood is in the ink in the Dark Mark, allowing for a one-way conduit."

Oh, God. She didn't know that Ral was magically tied to Voldemort through blood! If he tried to sever that bond by leaving Voldemort's circle, as she'd been asking him to do, it would cost him dearly. His own magical strength would be permanently diminished if he were to betray the Blood Magic to his Master. He might even be turned into a Squib! No wonder he'd been fighting her on the issue!

"You and I are linked by Blood Magic now, too," she whispered, touching a hand to her heart. "Our souls are connected, Ral."

"I... know," was all he said. "I feel your lingering presence, even when you're not here. That's why it hurts so much when we're parted, yeah? When you leave me, everything seems... less real, less _alive_. The joy leaves me and I struggle against my dark thoughts."

"It's the same for me," she admitted. "I cry every time I end up back in my own time, like I'm mourning your loss over and over again. I feel like a vital piece of me is missing, that I've left it in your care, and until I come back to you, I'll continue to feel that way. It's... painful."

For a long time, he stood before her, silent, and Hermione used the last of her courage to meet his gaze, refusing to flinch from the truth. His sky-blue eyes, she noted, were filled with storm clouds as he contemplated being tied to two distinctly different people who stood on opposite sides of the same war. In that moment, she knew he was considering his choice as to which bond he would betray: the one to his Master, thus betraying his brother, or the one to her, the witch he claimed to love. Either way, he'd be wounded; his magical powers would never be the same, for like an Unbreakable Vow, it was the one who shirked the Blood Magic who paid the price, not the injured party they left behind.

"I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen to you," she said, tears choking her voice, wavering before her eyes.

"I know," he reiterated, stepping towards her. Placing his hand over hers, he entwined their fingers. "It's not your fault, and I don't blame you. It was a freak accident. I'm not sorry for it, though." With his free hand, he reached up and stroked over her cheek. "I'll never regret how this came to be."

She pressed her forehead against his firm chest, and let out a shaky breath. "I _know_ it is magic manipulating my feelings for you, but... but I think it would be possible to still feel this way about you, even without the bond. I think I'd love you no matter when or how we'd met, Ral." She turned completely into his arms, and let him hold her. "I never believed in fate until I met you."

"Me, either."

The strong beat of his heart against her ear was like the loud ticking of a clock, she thought... Time was slipping away, faster and faster. She could feel it.

"There's more you have to know," she said, reluctantly leaning away from him, knowing they needed to get through this talk.

"There always is." He sighed. "So tell me the rest. Tell me how it is you jump through time."

She nodded, hating to break the moment. It had felt nice just to be held by him for those few stolen moments. "I used a Time-Turner when I was fourteen, as I told you already. As a result, I was vibrantly exposed to hot dark matter. Like radioactive material, it takes time for it to dissipate from a time-traveller's body, so it was still inside me when the cabinet exploded in the Time Room. Some of the newly released hot dark matter from that explosion was drawn like a magnet to the residual hot dark matter inside me. That's what kept my friends from being exposed to it and why they aren't, as far as I can discern, suffering its ill-effects. However, _you_ were on the other side of the room, closer to the cabinet itself, so some of the hot dark matter on that side splashed all over you. When I passed by you on the way out, I ran into your hot dark matter, and when I inhaled and smelled your Kretek cigarettes, it caused me to get a nosebleed. That's when the Blood Magic activated between us. From then on, the scent of cigarettes was, for me, a stimulant for triggering an olfactory memory of you, which would cause me to want to be with you, and I would jump to you at a random moment."

"But why now?" he asked. "Why not when I was twenty or thirty? Why this moment?" he asked. "There has to be a reason."

Rubbing a weary hand over her eyes, she said, "There is. The first time I jumped into the past, I smelled your cloves coming through the shared hospital doorway between our rooms. I jumped accidentally... to the exact time and date of my birth - the earliest point backwards, it seems, I'm capable of going without an actual Time-Turner's aid."

"Why is that as far back as you can go?" he asked, curious.

"The jump was fuelled primarily from my soul's energy, which works a lot like a Muggle automobile's gasoline gauge – there's only a finite amount of energy stored in it at any one time," she explained. "It refills over time naturally, but if the tank is ever completely emptied, the car quits working. In humans, an empty tank means death. Without a secondary energy source to help fuel a jump further than my own birth, I'd die in the attempt."

"So, if you're draining your soul's energy to jump backwards, how are you getting back to your own time?" he asked.

She glanced up at him, noting how far his lips were from hers and wanting more than anything to close that distance and forget all of this for now, to lose herself again in Ral's touch and taste.

It would have to wait. Hopefully, when their talk was done, there would be one last chance for them to love each other...

"I believe our soul bond, created by the Blood Magic, is the reason I'm able to return at all to my present timeline after each jump back into the past. Your soul provides me the energy I need to return. That's why I said I think my being here is draining you, too. The first time I jumped, I was in the hospital. You were right next door to me, ironically enough, so I heard the Healers and Medi-witches discussing your prognosis constantly. When I returned to the present time after our first encounter on the train, you remained in a coma—and you continued to be in a coma even after I checked out of the hospital a week later. I think my borrowing of your soul's energy that first time slowed your healing down to a crawl, and the coma was your body's way of shutting down non-essential processes so your soul's energy could replenish. And I think every time I've jumped backwards in time to you since, in order to come back to my correct time, I've been stealing your soul's energy through our soul bond. That's why I think you may not have ever left the hospital. I think I'm unintentionally keeping you in a state where you're not physically getting any better. I could even kill you, accidentally, if I drained you completely."

 _Which is why this has to be my last jump back to you,_ she thought with such sorrow that it nearly brought her to her knees. Now that she knew the truth, though, she couldn't risk him any longer. Besides, she couldn't risk being stranded back in 1981 when there was a war going on in her own time. Harry and her friends needed her with them there, in 1998. Hermione had to go back... and she could never risk returning here, to the past. She had to stay in her right time.

"I... see," Ral stated, and she knew by glancing into his face that he did, in fact, get her implication. His throat moved as he swallowed and his jaw clenched and unclenched as he struggled to get himself under control. "You ended up on that train that night, and not somewhere else, someplace random, because the Blood Magic bond between us drew you to my side, right?"

"Yes."

"And you were in the hospital just before then?"

She nodded.

"Well, that explains the johnnies," he said with a wry smirk. "So, you're not injured, but what about all of that hot dark matter crawling all over you? It's not hurting you, is it?"

She waved him off, unsure herself, but not wanting to worry her lover. "As I said, it dissipates over time if there is no more exposure, or it burns itself out once it is used up. There have been no recorded long-term negative effects."

Except in Eloise Mintumble's experience. Somehow, she accidentally got stuck five-hundred years in the past and caused the 'un-births' of twenty-five people - people who should have been born, but weren't because of her time-travelling meddling. Her case threw a huge monkey wrench in the accepted idea of Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle (the Ministry's officially backed theory about travelling through time) that time is immutable - that going back in time only sets in motion the events that lead you into going back in time in the first place, creating a closed-timelike curve. Basically, it states that there is no such thing as changing the future by altering the past.

Eloise's incident, however, made Hermione believe that it was quite possible that instead of changing the past, one created a parallel universe when one jumped back in time... In which case, perhaps she _could_ alter Ral's future by forewarning him of events to come without risking the timeline too much.

Could she manipulate the future she knew, change it so Voldemort was defeated now, in his time by telling Ral about it, though? More importantly, _should_ she? If she did tell Ral about the horcruxes and he set about destroying them here in his present timeline, would he be able to fundamentally shift events, as Eloise had done? Dare she risk unwinding everything she knew, perhaps even changing the course of her own future so that the person she was right now, right here no longer existed?

Ral gently tugging on one of her curls brought her back to the here and now, where he held her against his warm body in a gentle embrace. "What are you thinking, love?"

She swallowed the heart-shaped lump in her throat. "I'm afraid that the future I know will disappear if I stay here any longer with you. I think we're at a cosmic crossroads. More, I can't risk draining your soul of the last of its energy with any more jumps back."

He went rigid in her arms. "Meaning?"

Her gaze dropped to his chin. "Meaning I can't come back to see you anymore, and I think I've told you too much already about the future. You know enough now to change the course of my history. Who knows what repercussions that could have on the world? It didn't work out so well for Eloise Mintumble when she did it."

"But she used a Time-Turner that, for some reason, went haywire, according to the books," he pointed out. "You... you _are_ the Time-Turner in this case."

"Which makes the situation even more convoluted and confusing," she argued. "Will I remain untouched while the world you change from any knowledge I give you moves around me? How will the people I know and love treat me when I reappear in my normal time? Will I still be friends with Harry, or Ron, or the Weasleys? Will there still be a war on?" She gripped his shoulders in a tight hold. "If you change things too much, we won't meet in the Department of Mysteries. The accident won't happen and I won't become a living Time-Turner. I won't jump back in time and meet you or..." Her gaze returned to his beautiful blue eyes that reminded her of endless summer skies and freedom and all the things she wanted for her future. "...or fall in love with you. I'll be stuck with these memories, but will exist in a world that doesn't know me as I know it. I'll go mad, just like the books warn."

"Or, you could tell me and I only tweak one or two things, enough to cause us to end up to meet in the Department of Mysteries in your future, setting everything into motion as it was meant to be," he refuted.

She shook her head. "You don't understand! In order for that to happen, you-"

Abruptly, she shut her mouth, realising that she couldn't tell him his future - that in a little more than a month, Voldemort would be on the receiving end of an _Avada Kedavra_ gone wrong, that the First Wizarding War would end and that he, Ral, would end up in Azkaban for years, surrounded by Dementors, barely holding onto his sanity. How could she tell him that he would not die, he'd simply wish he had?

Strangely, Voldemort would be doing him a kindness when he breaks Ral out during the year of Umbridge's terrorizing.

Ral sighed. "Look, you know the future as it's meant to unfold, but I've already gleaned enough from you to know that you're fighting against my Master and that this war is still on-going seventeen years from now. It tells me there are still Death Eaters out there, and that I'm still a part of their organization, so obviously, I never join up with the Order. I can guess what that means for me, if I tried hard enough. It means that whatever I'm going to do here and now will either damn me or set me up so that we can be together sometime in the future, even though it'll be nearly twenty years away for me. I'm willing to take those repercussions on the chin if I can be with you then, since I can't be with you now." He gave her a small, sad smile. "Besides, right now, you're only a baby. What am I going to do for the next seventeen years but wait for you to grow up?"

Her eyes filled with tears again, and this time, she let them fall. The weight of this responsibility, of what they were giving up... it was too much for her tiny shoulders. "Oh, Ral," she whispered, and flung her arms around his neck, kissing him as she'd wanted to earlier. She let herself fall into him, feeling his heart pounding hard against her chest. He was obviously as scared as she was by the enormity of their responsibilities and their feelings.

He kissed her back with a matching, desperate passion.

When he pulled them up for air, he rested his forehead against hers and met her eye. "Is this it for us, then?" he asked, his voice choked by emotion. "You definitely won't come back to me again?"

"I can't," she sobbed. "It'll kill you. And... and I'm not meant to be here. I have to go back. I have to fight and put an end to Voldemort once and for all, for all our sakes."

There were no more chances for meetings such as this. Ironically, she and Ral had finally run out of time.

He bent forward to cradle his face into her throat. "I don't know if it's a Blood Magic bond making me feel this way, or if it's something more that we created together. I only know that I love you, Hermione. No matter what happens, know that I love you, okay?"

She nodded, crying, understanding only now why it was every time she returned to her present she felt as if she were in mourning: because a part of her had always known that this would be their fate. That someday, she would have to let him go.

However, existing in a closed timelike curve had assured that this moment—their last together where their ages and circumstances were the same—would allow them to build a future together many years from now. At least, that's what she hoped.

He stepped backwards while still keeping her close, guiding them towards the wide, comfortable bed. There, he stripped her of her clothing, as he stripped her heart of its defences, and as he laid her down in its centre, she felt their bond for the first time as a tangible melding of their souls. They made love one last time, and it was urgent, desperate, filled with memorizing touches and burning need. Their gasps and cries filled the room as they came together in sweet release, one after the other.

As they held each other in the afters, she whispered in his ear, "I love you, too… Rabastan Alastair Lestrange."

Darkness slowly crept along the sides of her vision the moment his true name left her lips.

A sudden, inexplicable panic gripped her and she, in turn, tightened her hold around him.

A split decision had her tossing aside every logical reservation she had, knowing she was breaking every rule of time travel set down by the Ministry in the doing, she did the unthinkable anyway: she told Ral how to change his future. "Take Dumbledore's deal today," she instructed him. "Turn spy for the Order. Voldemort's going to be defeated in a month's time by a fluke of old magic turned against him, and there will be war trials afterwards. If you turn now, you can get leniency and stay out of Azkaban. In a dozen years, though, Voldemort will come back in the future to kill my friend, Harry Potter. He's figured out a way to come back, but Harry's the key to defeating the Dark Lord once and for all—Sybill Trelawney's prophecy said so, and Dumbledore believed it." She cupped his cheeks, staring into his beautiful blue eyes. "If you turn now, you could help us then, too. You could infiltrate the Death Eaters and pass information to us. You could tell Dumbledore what you know."

He kissed her hard. "I'll do it," he promised her, anguish thickening his words. "Know that I choose you, Hermione. I choose us."

She choked on another sob, knowing what it would cost him to break the faith with his dark Master and his brother, whom he loved in his own way. He would be diminished, one step closer to mundane than magical—and all for her.

"Fifteen years from now, meet me in the Department of Mysteries," she cried, as shadow quickly swallowed her up, taking her from him. "And don't you dare be late, Ral!"

"I'll be there," he promised.

She opened her mouth to tell him just once more that she loved him, but quite suddenly, there was no more time.

**~.~.~**

Hermione blinked.

**~.~.~**

The sounds of the ocean birds gulling and the rushing waves pounding the shore outside the window told her immediately where she was.

Shell Cottage.

Hermione rolled over in Fleur and Bill's spare bed and sobbed her heart out as Ral's loss once more slammed into her hard and without mercy. That awful, swamping depression overwhelmed her again, and this time, she let it runs the gamut of its full fury, crying, screaming into her pillow. She even beat the mattress with her fists as she loosed her hot frustration and cold sorrow upon the empty side of the mattress.

Eventually, the storm passed, leaving her wrung out and emotionally exhausted. Lying on her back, softly hiccupping, she looked up at another white ceiling in another foreign room and contemplated her next move.

Had anything changed from her divulging that last second information to Ral? Had her lover escaped his fate in Azkaban or had Novikov been proved right, and there was no changing one's fate? Where was Ral now? Was he even alive, or had that last jump done him in?

Wiping the tears her eyes, she realised there was only one way to find out: she'd have to risk a trip to St. Mungo's Hospital in London... which was crawling with Death Eaters and Snatchers, all under Yaxley's command and who most likely had orders to haul her in on sight, no doubt.

With a deep sigh, she realised that this was going to be a difficult sneak-job, but then she thought, she never did things the easy way, did she?


	13. Chapter 13

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**21 April, 1998** _

_**St. Mungo's Hospital, London, England** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

To get to St. Mungo's, Hermione had given Harry and Ron the excuse that she had to replenish their nearly-depleted supply of dittany and healing potions before they took off into Gringotts for their daring attempt at Hufflepuff's Cup.

Even Griphook had agreed her idea a smart one, given what the vaults might hold for them, so it hadn't been a difficult fight to win, thankfully. Of course, she'd readily agreed to everyone's safety demands: to not only temporarily Transfigure her features just enough that people wouldn't recognise her, but also to take Fleur along with her into St. Mungo's. If they ran into any Death Eaters or Snatchers, Ron had insisted, the blonde's Veela pheromones would allow her to distract any male trouble.

Getting into the hospital had been easy, but Hermione hadn't counted on the added security in the form of Snatchers guarding the main exit. She and Fleur breezed past them, however, as Fleur took her hand and confidently guided them in and past all trouble. Hermione's faked allergy to bee stings (thanks to a well-practised Stinging Hex) had gotten them into a private room on the first floor, for 'a creature induced injury–non-magical'.

"Be right back," Hermione whispered to Fleur, who was to make the excuse to the Healer when he came into the room that her 'cousin' had gone to the loo, and then to distract him with flirting until Hermione returned with the stolen medical potions they'd need.

"'urry," the woman cautioned. "Eet eez dangerous to stay too long."

Scampering off, Hermione-in-disguise made it seem as if she were searching for the loo as she made her way up to the fourth floor, where those with spell damage were treated. She felt guilty lying to Fleur and the others, and risking so much, but she just had to see if Ral had been treated and released or if he was still in a coma. She _had_ to know.

Checking the names on the charts on every door, she didn't see 'Lestrange' anywhere. Throwing open the door to the room that had been next to hers so long ago, she found it empty, with the bed made-up for the next patient.

Heart pounding, she slumped against the door, feeling a bit deflated. Had he been discharged, or was he really gone forever? She'd been so sure they'd see each other again someday, just from his words about them having a future together, but perhaps what he'd felt had been an intuition about their fated meeting in the Department of Mysteries and not something beyond that.

"He left a few days ago," a resident Medi-wizard let her know as he passed by the room and noted her presence. "The patient in that room."

Hermione chased after him. "Was it the man in the coma?"

The Healer-in-training nodded. "Two years like that, then suddenly three days ago, he was awake, talking, and ready to be discharged."

Three days ago had been the last jump she'd made into the past. He'd woken up just as they'd said good-bye.

"Do you know where he went?" she asked, pushing her luck, but desperate for any news.

The Medi-wizard shook his head, stopping to check a chart on a door. "No idea, sorry. You might want to check with Medical Records. It's a long-shot, but they might be able to tell you."

Thanking the man, Hermione hurried off, heading back to the stairwell. She checked her Muggle timepiece on her wrist – twenty minutes had gone by since she'd left Fleur alone. She had to get back, before the Healer assigned to her case got suspicious and sounded the alarm. No time to stop at Med-Rec.

On her way back, she ducked into a supply room on the first floor and stole the potions she'd need for field injury healing, tucking them into her beaded bag. Then, she ducked into the first floor loo. Flushing the toilet, Hermione ran the sink, and then pinched her cheeks and wiped a bit of water above her brow to make it seem as though she'd been sweating. When she looked sufficiently constipated, she left the bathroom... and ran into the Healer assigned to her case.

It was an easy matter after that to convince him that she'd had a rather terrible bowel movement. "Happened to me all the time as a child," she reassured the Healer, who seemed alarmed by that type of symptom to a mere bee sting. After checking her over, he proscribed a potion for her, which he said she could pick up on her way out, when she paid at the cashier's window. He also proscribed rest and for her to drink fluids to push the poison's affects from her system sooner. She solemnly agreed to follow his advice, and then let out a sigh of relief when he was gone.

She and Fleur paid for their visit, and then walked out under the watchful eyes of Voldemort's foot soldiers. As they found a secluded spot to Disapparate, Fleur held them back with a hand on Hermione's shoulder. She gave her a long look. "Did you find what you were looking for?" her friend asked in her thickly-accented English.

Ashamed that she'd tricked Fleur, Hermione shook her head. "Only partly. I did get the potions, though." She tapped her bag at her side.

Ron's sister-in-law said nothing more, but took Hermione's hand and Side-Along'd her back to their first of three jump points before arriving back at Shell Cottage.

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**26 April, 1998** _

_**Shell Cottage, Tinworth, Cornwall** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Remus came to the cottage that night to announce the birth of his son, Teddy, named in honour of Tonks' father. Mother and son, he proudly boasted, were convalescing in a safe house under the watchful eye of Andromeda, Tonks' mother. Bill poured them all a glass of wine to celebrate.

The festive mood continued for hours. Griphook had tired of it pretty early on and had retreated to the bedroom upstairs he'd been using, which was a great relief to Hermione, who simply didn't care for the goblin. The others stayed and talked, however, catching up.

As they sat around discussing how the war was going, Remus had let it slip that someone had killed Rodolphus Lestrange the day before. His body had been found slumped over at a corner table in the Leaky Cauldron, presumably poisoned. Hermione instantly sobered at this news. Had Ral done it? Had he gotten out of the hospital only to hunt down his brother? He'd once almost committed suicide with poison. Perhaps he'd decided to use such a thing on his sibling instead, seeing Rodolphus as the cause of all of his misery?

But why would he do that? He'd been so adamant about wanting to save his brother...

"While I was at St. Mungo's with Fleur a few days ago, I'd heard a Medi-wizard say Rabastan Lestrange had just come out of a two-year coma," she volunteered, seeing this as a chance to perhaps put some doubt into everyone's heads about Ral's loyalty to the Death Eaters. "He's been unconscious since the incident in the Department of Mysteries."

Remus frowned at that, as did everyone else.

"Great, another scum Death Eater to fight," Ron huffed.

Hermione squirmed in her seat, looking down at the empty cup in her hands. "I... don't think he's what you think he is." She set the cup down on the coffee table before her, too jittery to hold onto it. "In fact, I think he may even be on our side."

There was a suffocating silence then, and Hermione could feel all eyes on her.

"'Mione, what do you know?" Harry asked her, his voice not accusatory, just curious.

She took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. "Something's been happening to me for two years," she finally confessed, feeling now was the right time at long last to tell the truth. "When we were in the Time Room in the Department of Mysteries, I was close to the Time-Turner cabinet when it was destroyed. Its magic… leaked all over me. I've been randomly jumping back and forth through time since then."

Everyone stared at her with incredulity.

"I know it sounds insane, but it's true!" she insisted. "Because of these jumps, I've actually met Ral– _Rabastan_ –when he was younger, just after he'd taken the Dark Mark. We got to know each other. He confided in me that he took the Mark for his brother, to try to save him. He didn't want to join the Death Eaters. Dumbledore knew, and even made him an offer to turn spy for the Order. Ral was supposed to take the deal. I'm not sure he ever got the chance, though."

"Hermione," Harry began, nervously pushing his glasses up, "maybe you need to rest some more. It's only been a couple of weeks since Bellatrix–" He paused, pursing his lips. "You know."

"Yeah, maybe you should have a lie down. You're sounding kind of looney right now," Ron chimed in. He glanced over at a silent Luna sitting on the couch next to him. "Er…"

Luna looked up at him. "It's okay, Ron. I know you can't help but talk before you think sometimes. It's one of your more persistent traits." She glanced at Hermione. "You're a time traveller, then?" She leaned forward and looked all around Hermione, as if she could see something none of the rest of them could. "That explains your magical aura. I thought the change in its colour was because you were in love with Ron, but now I see that's not it at all."

Hermione gaped at her. "My magical aura?"

Luna nodded, already distracted by something else across the room. "Oh, yes. It's red. Very Gryffindor. It also means you're in love."

Glancing around at the faces of her other friends, Hermione was shocked to see pity on the faces of Bill, Dean, Harry, and Ron. Remus and Fleur both, she noticed, were looking at her through narrowed, assessing eyes, as if they couldn't quite believe her either.

She ground her back teeth, irritated. "No, I do not need to have a lie down, Ron, Harry. I'm telling the truth. Something happened to me two years ago. I've kept it a secret all this time because I knew this was the reaction I'd get." She waved her hands at them to prove her point. "And honestly, I knew how my story would sound. It seems inconceivable that such a thing could happen, but as I explained to Ral, I was over-exposed to too much of the particles that make Time Magic work–first when I used a Time-Turner all through my third year at school, and then again when the Time-Turner cabinet exploded near me. It altered me." She glanced at Luna. "That's probably what's caused my magical aura to change, too, if you're right."

Luna gave her a mysterious smile. "That and you're in love," the witch insisted.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "The point is I've met Ral in person because of some freak magical accident–and don't you dare tell me that can't happen, because I'm quite sure everyone here knows it can and has many a time. We saved Sirius from you, Remus, when you were a werewolf _because_ of time magic, remember? And Harry, we saved Sirius and Buckbeak that same night later, also because of time magic."

"I remember," Harry conceded, but still hesitant to believe, "but 'Mione–"

Firmly, she shook her head and crossed her arms. "Don't you 'but 'Mione' me, Harry James Potter! I'm telling you that I met Rabastan Lestrange. It was no fantasy or make-believe. He was as real to me as you are right now. I also know he was never a Death Eater because he wanted to be, but because he felt responsible for his older brother, who's about as smart as Crabbe and Goyle combined. Dumbledore knew all about it, and made him an offer to turn spy."

Harry looked openly sceptical now, to the point of aggression. "Then why didn't he? I'll tell you why: because he was a Death Eater through-and-through! He was locked up with the others in Azkaban after the war for helping to torture Neville's parents, for Godric's sake!"

Remus cleared his throat. "That's not entirely true, Harry." He held his hand up to stay Harry's protest, and then turned his piercing, green eyes on Hermione once more. "That was three times you called him 'Ral'. Where did you hear that nickname?"

"It's his initials: Rabastan Alastair Lestrange."

Her former professor took a deep breath and nodded. "Everyone called him that back in school. I remember him, although I was older–a fourth year when he was sorted. I recall he was scrawny, like I was, and quiet, too. Sporty, but only because Slytherin needed a good Seeker then, and I think he fit the bill. He was more academic, though. His brother was the exact opposite, of course."

Feeling a spark of hope that maybe someone in a position of authority within the Order would believe her and give Ral the benefit of the doubt, she nodded with growing enthusiasm. "He said Rolph–that was his nickname for Rodolphus–wasn't very bright, but he'd been good to Ral when he'd been a child, and he owed it to his brother to try to save him. I got the impression from this last time we met that he was willing to turn for the Order, though, to do whatever it took to try to get the both of them out. He was getting desperate."

Remus tiredly ran his fingers over his eyes and the scruffy growth of beard that shadowed his jawline. "What did you tell him, exactly?"

Hermione squirmed in her seat, knowing she'd broken so many of the cardinal rules for time travel, many of them unintentionally. "You have to understand: I didn't know I was time travelling until this last jaunt," she admitted. "I thought it was all in my head at first, and then later that maybe Ral had figured out some sort of strange spell to summon me to his side across the distance. The details of the wars are very close–he called it 'Potter's Order', and I thought he'd meant Harry, when he'd really meant Harry's father. He spoke of Dumbledore leading things, which was how it was in this war, until his death. And the Death Eaters are practically all the same from the first time around, too. I thought he was living in this time period, fighting this war, like me. It wasn't until this last jaunt that he told me that the day was the nineteenth of September in 1981. That's when I knew I'd been whisked back into the past, and that he was a Death Eater in the First Wizarding War. That's when I learned his full name, and put it all together."

"What did you tell him, Hermione?" Harry growled.

To have her best friend look at her like this, with suspicion, hurt. She glared at him. "I told Ral that Voldemort was doomed to fail, but he would come back in the future. I asked him to take Dumbledore's deal, to spy for the Order. He promised he'd do it."

"And why would he do that?" Bill asked.

Hermione could feel her cheeks heat, knowing there was no choice but to break down the wall of privacy that kept her most intimate self safe from scrutiny, persuasion, or censure, and to let her friends into a space in her life that had always been hers alone. A woman's sexual secrets were special and not to be shared carelessly–at least, that's how she'd been raised to believe. Yet, now she'd have to speak them aloud to convince Harry and the others that Ral was a man she felt she could trust, not just with her body, but with her heart, too.

She glanced at Luna and gave her friend a wry smile. "You were right about my aura."

Luna's smile bloomed, brightening the room. "It was hard not to see it. You glow."

Did she really?

"You smell of eet, too, _ami chéri_ ," Fleur chimed in, giving her a mysterious smirk while tapping the side of her nose. "Zee Veela always knows."

"Ah," Remus sighed, putting his palms over his eyes and rubbing. "I see."

When she glanced at her other friends, Dean seemed surprised, Bill intrigued, and Harry was stony-faced.

"Someone want to let me in on the gag?" Ron asked, looking around, noting that he alone seemed the only one who didn't understand what Hermione was implying.

She took a deep breath. "Ron, Ral and I…" She steadied herself, knowing this was going to hurt. "We're lovers."

As she'd expected, Ron exploded in anger, yelling at her for being foolish and accusing her of being out of her right mind. Squaring her shoulders, Hermione met his violent disbelief and Harry's silent disappointment with courage. She wouldn't apologise to anyone for falling in love with Ral, no matter if their relationship was ill-fated, ill-timed, or what have you.

When Remus finally ordered the youngest Weasley silent, her former professor dropped an even bigger bomb than the one Hermione had let off. "I will tell you all something right now that must never leave this room." He glanced at Bill, and the eldest Weasley son raised his wand and assured the room was spelled for privacy. When it was done, Remus took Hermione's hand. "I believe you in this, Hermione, because Rabastan Lestrange has been spying for the Order since just before James and Lily's deaths."

Shocked to her core, Hermione could only gape at her former professor, the light of hope bursting to life in her heart. Everyone else seemed equally as shocked. Mouths opened, shut, minds turned over this new information. Those who'd accused Ral of being a Death Eater loyalist not two minutes before we now astonished to know they were wrong.

"I found out the truth only after the Dark Lord was vanquished, when the trials began and Sirius had been locked away," Remus continued. "Dumbledore came to me then, and bade me hide Ral, realising that the Council of Magical Law wasn't in the mood for leniency after the first war. Albus had barely managed to get Snape's charges dismissed, and didn't believe he had any political pull left to save Rabastan, too."

He silenced Hermione's automatic protest by squeezing her hand, asking for her patience so he could finish his story. She shut her mouth and listened.

"You have to understand, that was a dark time in our lives," Remus informed them all. "Friend turned on friend, many like Lucius Malfoy claimed the Imperius Curse was responsible for their actions. Then Bellatrix and Rodolphus tortured the Longbottoms in revenge for the elder Lestrange's death, and that was the final straw. No one wanted justice anymore–they wanted revenge. The press provoked it, and those who had lost loved ones in the war demanded it. The tide was against those who had been captured last, like Rabastan."

He leaned back in the cosy chair he's taken and rubbed a tired hand over his short, receding hairline.

"As usual, Bellatrix only made it all worse, goading the courtroom with her laughter and her boasting that the Dark Lord would live on. Rodolphus simply said nothing, cementing his guilt in the eyes of the world. When it was Rabastan's turn to be judged, they didn't even grant him a trial–he stood in the courtroom in chains and was sentenced just as Sirius had been, without an opportunity to defend himself. No one cared to hear that he'd changed sides, or that he'd risked his neck to spy for the Order. They saw him as a Lestrange, son of one of the Dark Lord's greatest lieutenants, brother to a brute, and brother-in-law to a mad witch."

He paused, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, the weight of those years still heavy on his shoulders.

"I'd ignored Dumbledore's request to help Rabastan escape with me as I left England." He paused, looking ashamed. "I'd lost everything, you see–my friends, my mother, and I'd distanced myself from my father because of my relationship with the Order, to keep him out of harm's way. It didn't seem to matter that I'd fought on the side of the Order either. People were still frightened of me because of my… condition, and I was tired of fighting the world. I just wanted to run and never look back. It's hardly an excuse, but…" He straightened his spine to accept their censure. "I left for the continent before Rabastan's sentencing. I left him to his fate in Azkaban."

Hermione's dripping tears were cool against her hot cheeks. "Remus, it wasn't your fault. He shouldn't have waited so long to change sides. He'd been struggling with that decision for two years–since the first time we'd met on my first trip to the past." Now it was her turn to reach out. She gripped his hand. "Have you seen him over the last few days? Has he come to the Order yet?"

Sadly, Remus shook his head. "No, but with Dumbledore dead, I doubt he'd approach us now."

"You reckon he's the one who killed Rodolphus?" Bill asked.

Hermione wiped at her cheeks and sniffled. Her nose was a bit stuffy from the crying. "I can't see why he would do such a thing. His brother was the only family he had left, and had ever cared for, it seemed."

"Bellatrix, most likely," Remus guessed. "She'd never liked, much less loved Rodolphus, using him to do the dirtier work for her. She may have felt her ox-of-a-husband's use was at an end at long last."

"Off her rocker, that one," Ron grumbled, leaning back into the sofa, his arms crossed. Clearly, he was more willing to believe Hermione's story now that Remus had backed her up–which was typical of him, as Ron was predictably the cynic, while Harry was always the conspiracist. That made her the voice of reason between the two, usually, and the one more frequently owed an apology, like now.

"Remus, if you do hear from Ral, please try to get him to officially defect," she requested. "With Rolph dead, he has no reason to be anywhere near You-Know-Who any longer. I want him safe."

Again, an awkward silence settled over the room.

"We might need him now that Snape's no longer loyal to us," her former professor replied, considering the idea. "Having a spy on the inside could make all the difference."

Harry, who looked more contrite, cleared his throat. "Er, can't you just jump through time again and talk to him?"

Again, that painful lump of knowing Ral was now out of her reach knotted her chest. "Once he awoke from the coma that was the end of my time travelling. The connection between his past self and my present self was severed."

"You're going to have to tell us how any of it was even possible," Remus told her.

She gave a sad smile. "Someday, when there's more time. Suffice to say, it was… magic."


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added a brand new section between the break-out at Gringotts and the Final Battle. This part didn't appear in the original fest submission.
> 
> In the novel canon, Hermione is heard by Harry to be sobbing after the escape from Gringotts on the back of the dragon. I used that little bit to my advantage here in this fic.

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**1 May, 1998** _

_**Diagon Alley, London** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Riding the back of a blind Ukranian Ironbelly desperately clawing its way to freedom through the marble flooring of a goblin-run bank was terrifying, but the moment the giant beast dragged its bulk through the hole in the lobby floor that it had made, and she glanced up at the wide, blue sky above, her fears instantly evaporated. They were going to make it – and they had Hufflepuff's cup!

Time seemed to slow to a crawl.

Hermione blinked and looked down towards the bank's entrance...

...and met Rabastan Lestrange's surprised face glancing up at her from the doorway. He was much older, thinner, more exhausted looking, and a thin strip of his dark charcoal hair was streaked white, but she'd recognise his unique shade of blue eyes anywhere.

Clearly, he'd been on his way in when he'd been stopped by the rumbling floor, the falling chandelier, and the chunks of marble crashing to the ground nearby. Gripping the column by the door for support, he stood and stared, seeming in disbelief of the scene unfolding before him.

"Ral," she whispered, feeling tears sting her eyes.

She smiled at him.

Time sped back up.

The dragon darted for the entrance, and Ral scrambled out of the way. The beast rammed the giant brass doors with its horned head, nearly bucking Hermione off. She held tighter to it, terrified of falling and looked for Ral again, but things were moving too fast. Once the beast had cleared the building, it launched itself into the sky on wings that hadn't been used in years. Flying was as instinctual as breathing to this majestic creature, though, and soon, Hermione and her stowaway friends were leaving London, heading away from the city, one step closer to the endgame.

She broke into sobs then, her heart aching just as much as it had every time she and Ral had been parted in the past. So close. He'd been _right there_ in front of her!

At least now they both knew the other was alive. Maybe, just maybe, he'd find her again, and soon.

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**1 May, 1998** _

_**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

The smoke stung Hermione's eyes, and the scent of burned tapestries and blasting spell was cloying. She tripped over a body and stopped, desperately searching the face to make sure it wasn't _him_ , wasn't Ral. She'd been searching for him in between her jaunt to the Chamber of Secrets with Ron.

It was Colin Creevey, wand in hand, rather than a camera. He wasn't moving, wasn't breathing. His neck was twisted at an odd angle. She bent to check his pulse.

Gone.

Someone down the hallway screamed and there was an explosion. Hermione set her mourning for her younger Housemate aside and moved towards the action, worried for the living. It was Ron, engaged in a fierce fight with Marcus Flint.

Hermione sent a well-aimed _Stupefy_ at the dark wizard, and he flew backwards into a wall, knocked unconscious. She followed it up with an _Incarcerous_. With a final flick of her wrist, she _Accio_ 'd his wand to her hand and snapped it in half. Flint wouldn't be hurting anyone else, if she could help it.

"Bloody brilliant," Ron congratulated her. "Come on, we have to find Harry. He went to talk to The Grey Lady about Ravenclaw's Horcrux."

Hermione raised an eyebrow at that. "She knows where it is? Where?"

Ron grabbed her hand and yanked her after him. "Always with the questions. Come on."

They hurried across the castle to Ravenclaw's Tower, located in the west wing. The Grand Staircase was a cacophony of noise and activity, with battles taking place between floors and on the moving stairs. She and Ron dodged spells and cast defensive shields to make their way up to the fifth floor. Just as they reached the proper landing, someone fell from one of the higher levels, screaming as they tumbled past. Not knowing the identity of the victim, Hermione cast an _Arresto Momentum_ and glanced over the edge.

It was a Death Eater, his silver mask glinting in the torches.

Quickly, Hermione cast an Incarceration Spell upon him, so when he hit the bottom, he'd been trussed up and unable to break free. It was the best she could offer, given that right then, someone else threw the Killing Curse her way. Its green light hit one of the portraits behind her, and it shrieked. Brian Gagwilde III, descendant of former Hogwarts Headmaster, Brian Gagwilde, disappeared in a plume of black smoke, his canvas charred where he'd once stood proudly for years.

Apparently, portraits could be destroyed with _Avada Kedavra_. That was something Hermione had never read was possible, and she made a note to update _Hogwarts, A History_ with the details of Gagwilde's tragic loss, if she was fortunate enough to survive the battle.

She glanced upwards and across towards the sixth floor landing to see Yaxley glaring down at her. Half his face was covered with pink, new skin as if it had been torn off... Splinched, she suddenly realised, in the same accident that had nearly severed Ron's arm after their escape from the Ministry of Magic. Yaxley had grabbed on and been taken with them on their ride to Grimmauld Place, before she'd altered their destination at the last moment. Apparently, Voldemort's lieutenant had been seriously wounded, too.

He raised his wand at her at the exact moment she raised hers at him, a _Stupefy_ on her tongue.

From a lower level, someone hit Yaxley before either she or her opponent could get their spell off. The Knockback Jinx sent Yaxley flipping end-over-end through the open door to the sixth floor hallway behind him.

She resisted Ron tugging on her arm to pull her away as she looked over the edge, trying to see the face of her saviour. Ral looked up at her from the second level. He looked exhausted, but ferociously grinned up at her.

She returned his smile, tears wavering before her eyes.

"Come on!" Ron goaded her, pulling hard on her arm. "Harry needs us!"

Torn for an instant between her heart and her duty, Hermione made a split-second decision. She looked back down at her lover and shouted to him, "I'll find you!" and then she allowed Ron to lead her off into the fifth floor corridor, knowing her best friends still needed her. Later, she would find Ral, be reunited with him. For now, she had a job to complete. Ravenclaw's Horcrux was somewhere in the castle, waiting for them to hunt it down and destroy it once and for all.

She prayed as she ran down the darkened hallway that there would be a later—that she, her friends, and Ral would not meet the same fate as sweet, soft-hearted Colin Creevey and poor, pitiable Brian Gagwilde III.

 


	15. Chapter 15

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**2 May, 1998** _

_**Aftermath of the Final Battle** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

It was over. Voldemort was gone. Good had triumphed.

So much had been lost, though. Too much.

Hermione, Ron, and Harry separated at the bottom of the Headmaster's Tower, Ron going to be with his family in a secluded classroom where Fred's body had been moved, Harry to speak with Minerva and Kingsley about what came next. Both had waved her off when she'd offered to go with them; they must have sensed her urgent desire to see if Ral had come, drawn to the fighting. She told them she would meet up with them later, and headed for the area at the bottom of Grand Staircase, where the bodies of the other dead had been moved.

She sobbed to see Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Fay Dunbar, and Ernie Macmillan amongst the fallen she already knew about, lying on the cold stone floor. Malfoy was here, between rows, kneeling beside a bloodied figure she recognised as Pansy Parkinson. His vacant-eyed parents stood at his side. They were all three surrounded by Aurors, who kept a watchful eye on them.

Hermione cautiously approached and knelt at Malfoy's side. His face was pale, and there was a dried line of blood trailing from his nose and a nasty dark bruise slanting across one cheek where Ron had punched him. His hands trembled as he took off his outer robe and laid it over Pansy's body and head. She helped him to straighten the sides.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes stinging from her falling tears.

There was no love lost between her and Malfoy, but she'd seen his suffering when Crabbe had been consumed by the Fiendfyre, and now he'd lost another friend in Slytherin. Every loss of life was tragic, no matter whom it belonged to, and there was no sin in showing compassion, even to a former enemy.

Malfoy sniffed, wiping at his nose. "Thanks," he murmured. He pressed two fingers over Pansy's stilled heart, and then pulled away. As he and his family turned towards the stairs to go back up and face the music, their guards keeping their wands trained on the trio, Draco turned at the stairs. "Granger."

She stood up, her tired knees cracking with the effort.

"Rabastan Lestrange came to our house about two weeks ago, looking for his brother. He pulled me aside, asked if I knew you. I told him I did, but that we weren't friends."

Her tongue suddenly thick in her mouth, all she could do was stare at Draco, astounded by what he was telling her.

"He's looking for you. I don't know why, but… if he survived the fighting, be careful. He's a Lestrange, and they're all made of madness."

With that, he and his parents continued on their way. She guessed this meant he felt his debt to her for helping to save Goyle in the Room of Requirement was now paid, and that was fine by her.

She glanced around at the dead bodies, not seeing Ral among them. That, at least, brought her some measure of comfort. Wiping her eyes, she walked away from the dead, searching for one hopefully still amongst the living.

**~.~.~**

After checking the Slytherin dormitories and the Potions classrooms, and not finding Ral there, Hermione walked down the long path away from the castle, towards the Black Lake. She paced the shore from north to south and back again, but he was not there, either. Continuing down to the front gates, she paused to glance at the spot she and Ral had once occupied against the stone wall. The grass was as tall and green as she remembered it to be. No doubt it was just as soft as well. Ral wasn't lying in it though. He wasn't anywhere here, as far as she could tell.

Corsham. His family's home was there. Perhaps he'd gone home, needing to get away from the death and destruction at Hogswarts.

Concentrating, she recalled her previous two visits to Corsham, where she'd lost her virginity in Ral's bed, and Disapparated in a crack of thunder. She arrived at the front gate, wards around the house keeping her from entering, so she tried the bell, only to receive a house-elf servant's news that no one was home. After some bit of coaxing, the elf revealed that Ral's mother had passed years ago, soon after her husband's death. With Rodolphus now dead at Bellatrix's hand (confirmed, finally), Rabastan was the rightful Master of the house, but he hadn't been back for days. The elf was beside itself with grief and anxious to be given direction. Hermione did her best to cheer the little fellow, before heading on her way once more.

Where else could he possibly be? She recalled every place they'd met, and realised she'd skipped two: the Leaky Cauldron and the Hogwarts Express. So, did she go to the last place they'd been together–the ending of their affair–or to the first place they'd met, where it had all begun?

Suddenly, she knew the answer: their interactions had been dominated by a closed timelike curve–a circle. They'd come to their end already. It was time to start over. She concentrated on Apparating, blinking one last time.

The moment the thunderous sound of her travel dissipated in the warm, spring-time air Hogsmeade's train station's clock rang out, chiming the hour – twelve strikes.

Noon.

A puff of white smoke appeared from around the building's corner. The warm, candy-sweet scent of liquorice and cloves carried on the light summer breeze.

"Well, well, what have we here?"

As Ral stepped into view, crushing out his Kretek cigarette against his heel, Hermione's heart snapped into overdrive, pounding so hard she thought it would burst through her chest. Casually, he made his way across the platform, stopping only when their warm breaths were a bare breeze against the others' cheek.

"You lost, little bird?" he asked her in a sensual whisper.

"I was," she told him, meeting his sky-blue gaze with luminous joy, "but it seems the longest distance between two places is time... and we've finally caught up to it."

Reaching up, she wrapped her arms around Ral's neck and rested her cheek against his fast-beating heart. His arms came around her, cradling her close, and they melted into each other as if nothing else in the world mattered.

"Hello, my sweet girl," he whispered. "I knew you'd find me again. You always do."

Hermione took a deep breath and filled her lungs with the wonderful scent of Ral, feeling as if she'd finally found her quiet place to stay. "And I always will," she promised him.

In the warm, afternoon sun, they held each other with the intent to never let go again. In those quiet moments, the seconds seemed to stand still for them one more time.


	16. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Revision of this chapter from the original fest entry.
> 
> The story, thus far, has been told in Hermione POV exclusively. Now, for this last chapter, you get to see things from Ral's POV.
> 
> Without further ado... here is the end for you!

**~.~.~.~.~.~**

_**Epilogue** _

_**19 September, 1998** _

_**The Granger Home, Lingfield, Surrey** _

**~.~.~.~.~.~** _**  
** _

Rabastan wiped his sweaty hands on his pressed trousers, letting the fine wool absorb the moisture, and then tugged at the hem of his fashionable and strapping Gabardine blazer, settling it more snugly over his wide shoulders. He'd gone with the Muggle look tonight, shunning wizarding robes, but a wardrobe change was hardly the cause of his fidgeting; besides, he was used to wearing jeans, crew-neck jumpers, and trainers by now. No, he was bubbling over with nervous energy because of what tonight represented: a new beginning.

Hermione had helped him pick the outfit for tonight's momentous dinner, knowing how important it was for him to impress her family, and now he was glad for her advice, for the clothing was doing wonders holding up under his elevated stress levels. Anything made of that god-awful Muggle synthetic poly-whatsit stuff would have suffocated him right off.

Bloody hell, he hoped he passed the parent test tonight! It would suck a hearty one if Mister and Missus Granger hated him.

He straightened his silk tie for the thousandth time and smoothed back his hair again, then raised his fist to knock.

He paused as a bout of nerves writhed through his guts, threatening to make him vomit.

For Salazar's sake, he was a month away from being thirty-six years old, had survived deceiving a powerful, cold-blooded, sadistic Dark Lord, endured two wizarding wars, and suffered a brief stint in Azkaban under the torment of Dementors. Meeting the Muggle parents of the woman he loved should be a cake-walk in comparison.

Still, he'd never experienced shaking the hand of a girlfriend's mum and dad before, knowing that _they_ knew he was happily shagging their one and only daughter. He'd never let any other woman this close. He'd never loved anyone this much.

He squared his shoulders, attempting to latch on to his courage once again. He could do this, because just on the other side of this door was the one thing he'd waited years to have, and he bloody damn well wasn't going to throw it away now, not after everything he'd endured to get here!

Rabastan didn't fool himself; he would never be half as brave or as smart as his Hermione, but he was cocksure and clever enough to know that she was _it_ for him. He'd known it the first time they'd kissed, and he knew it now standing here on her family's front step: there would never be anyone else for him. The thought of reuniting with her again in the Department of Mysteries had been his only beacon of hope in the dark months and years after her disappearance from the Leaky Cauldron that last afternoon they'd shared in the past. He'd survived every day for five years in that god-awful prison afterwards believing that they were destined to meet and love again someday, and convincing himself to just hang on a little longer. Then, after Dumbledore had arranged on the down-low for his eventual release, Rabastan had pretty much driven himself into the grave to assure things came out the way they were supposed to, at least according to Hermione's last words to him. He'd lived the life of a hermit and he'd done his best not to call attention to himself, knowing that in the future, Voldemort would rise again and his services as a spy for the Order would once more be required, and that it wouldn't do for him to be seen freely wandering around if he intended on one day fooling the Dark Lord into believing he was still a devout loyalist. That's why he'd transfigured his features every time he stepped out his front door, and why he'd learned to live with one foot in the Muggle world as well. It was why he'd watched over her from the shadows, keeping her ignorant of his true identity for years. Yes, he'd gotten the rare and wondrous chance to watch her grow up as a result, but it had still hurt to hold back and not reveal himself to her.

He'd gotten through that. He could get through a simple meet-and-greet of the parental units.

He knocked. The door opened, and Ral's breath was stolen from him once more.

God, he was a lucky fucker. Hermione was a goddess—a delicious configuration of luscious curves and warm, honey-coloured skin, all grown-up and more than ready for him. He'd traced every inch of that body after their reunion at the train station, carrying her into the same luggage carriage where they'd first met and bringing things full circle as the train had headed off for London, carrying a few wounded fighters who couldn't be Floo'd or Apparated to St. Mungo's due to the nature of their injuries. By the time they'd arrived at King's Cross hours later, he and Hermione had thoroughly christened that railway coach, as he'd wanted to do the first night they'd met there years before.

Her eyes flashed with irritation, a sight he was well-familiar with by now. It made him smile.

"Were you planning on standing at my doorstep all night long, or did you actually intend to ring the bell?" she hissed, one hand braced upon a gently sloping hip.

Rabastan's smile widened. "I knocked. Besides, I'd actually hoped that by lingering out here long enough, you'd show up spitting fire at me. I so look forward to facing your temper, my love."

She dropped her arm and stared at him aghast. Then, she laughed. "You are an absolute, unrepentant rascal, aren't you?"

He stepped forward, shut the door behind him, and took her into his arms. "You mean, the naughty spells I non-verbally cast at you in the Department of Mysteries didn't clue you in?" He pressed a small kiss to her tight mouth. "Is that why you let me—"

_"Ahem!"_

Rabastan immediately dropped his arms and stood up straighter as Hermione's father stepped into the foyer.

The moment Richard Granger spotted him, Rabastan knew he'd been found out.

The older man narrowed his eyes. "The man at the park, who used to feed the birds," Richard stated, recognising him from years before. "You used to watch my daughter play." He didn't sound in the least bit appreciative of that fact.

Rabastan sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "All on the up-and-up, I promise," he offered. "Just wanted to make sure Hermione was safe."

His girlfriend whirled on him, eyes and mouth rounder than giant-sized 'O's'. "You!" she proclaimed, stepping back and pointing one ink-stained finger at him. "Your eyes—they're the same! Merlin, why didn't I put it together?"

Gently, he gripped her finger and kissed the tip, making her bend it inwards and away from him. Although he wasn't an overly-superstitious man by nature, tradition stated it was bad luck to point at a wizard, and Rabastan had had enough bad luck in his life. "I was afraid for you. The world was different after the first war, but still just as dangerous for Muggle-borns. You knew nothing of your talents, and I worried what would happen if you manifested your magic early, or if some rogue Death Eater discovered what you were. I wanted to protect you."

She pulled from his grasp. "You protected me by secretly stalking me all through my childhood?" she asked, placing _both_ hands on her hips this time and giving him a scary glare.

"Perhaps we should sit down if we're to talk," Missus Granger suggested, coming up alongside her husband with a gracious smile. "Hello. I'm Helen," she introduced herself, holding out her hand.

Rabastan shook her hand and her husband's, and introduced himself. He then allowed Hermione's mother to direct him (under Richard's and Hermione's matching glares) into the living room.

"Tea?" Helen asked him.

"Yes, thank you."

Given how dry his mouth felt just then, her offer couldn't have been better timed.

Once he had the cup and saucer in hand, he sipped at it, letting the warm beverage soothe the back of his throat. When no one spoke for a solid minute, and Rabastan began to sweat under the scrutiny, he took the bull by the horns. He knew Hermione had already explained the situation to her parents about their magical relationship, so they understood the age issues between them and why they were dating now. Perhaps that would be enough to keep him from being skinned alive by Richard for sleeping with the man's daughter. "I admit, it was a tad stalkerish to hang around a children's garden, and outside your home—"

"My home, too?" Hermione asked, surprised, pausing with her cup half way to her lips. "And you never once thought to approach me?"

He gave a heavy sigh. "Of course I did, love, but I'd promised Dumbledore I wouldn't. First, it wouldn't have been appropriate to approach you until you were of age."

"At least you've some sense in that regard," Richard Granger growled.

Rabastan swallowed another gulp of tea. "Yes, well… Second, you asked me to spy for the Order not only when I was nineteen, but when the Dark Lord reappeared at some point in the future. To do that, I had to maintain my cover that I was a suffering loyalist, just as Severus did. I couldn't appear to be on any sort of friendly terms with—" He abruptly stopped, glanced over at Hermione's parents.

"Muggles," Helen easily supplied.

"Yes." He put his empty tea cup down on the coffee table nearby, careful to place it so it didn't clink. "I did the only thing I could to assure the future turned out as you'd explained: I stayed at a discreet distance. I also wrote down everything you told me that day in the Leaky Cauldron, the last time we met. I used the parchment and ink on the table in that room after you'd left, and scribbled down everything I could remember. I Owl'd it to Albus Dumbledore that same night, and let him know I wanted to defect."

"The letter!" Missus Granger gasped. She turned to her husband at her side and gripped his hand in a firm hold. "That letter we received the same day Mister Dumbledore came to visit us to discuss Hermione's magical heritage. You remember it, don't you, Richard? It was from _him_!" She waved a hand in Rabastan's direction.

Hermione looked between her parents. "What letter?"

Her father's tea cup rattled, and he quickly put it down on the coffee table. He seemed truly disturbed. "Do you remember the day Albus Dumbledore came to our house and sat down with us in the kitchen?"

"You were caught eavesdropping," her mother supplied with a twitch of a smile.

Blushing, Hermione nodded. "Yes. That was the night I received my Hogwarts letter."

"Your old Headmaster had another letter with him that day. He gave it to us first to read, before he gave you your official invitation envelope," Helen explained. "The letter was about you, sweetheart—about your role in the future of the wizarding world. It said you were to become friends with a boy named Harry Potter, that you were to fight a war in the future against an evil wizard, and that during your third year in school, you were to be given the use of some magical time device, the one you told us about. It stated that it was imperative that you receive that device then in order to do what you had to do to help fight the evil wizard."

"I remember that!" Hermione announced, round-eyed and filled with wonder. "I saw dad holding this piece of funny, yellow paper. It was stained and looked old…" She gasped and pointed again at Rabastan. "It _was_ the same paper from the Leaky Cauldron. I saw it in the room that time!"

He gave her a lopsided smile. "You told me to defect right away, if you'll recall. So I did, that same afternoon."

"No wonder Dumbledore knew Voldemort wasn't defeated completely back then, and that he'd be coming back for Harry." His witch put her hands over her eyes. "He didn't know how, though. I'd never told you about the Horcruxes." She dropped her hands back into her lap, looking a tad melancholy. "If only I had…"

Rabastan took her hands in his. "Love, you said it yourself: time is circular. You could have done nothing to change the events as they were meant to unfold."

Firmly, Hermione shook her head. "I've been questioning that belief ever since I first learned of Eloise Mintumble and how her jump five-hundred years into the past completely contradicts the Ministry's official time-travel dogma. As far as my reading could determine, her experience in time-travel had been with a broken Time-Turner that had spilled hot dark matter all over her. That error had resulted in her going back in time further than anyone ever had before, and had resulted in an altering of the timeline she'd known. I'd hoped that, because of the Blood Magic between us and the interference of the hot dark matter on myself, _we'd_ be able to circumvent the natural order, too, Ral. By telling you about my future that day at the Leaky Cauldron, I'd wanted to influence your decisions in such a way as to alter the course of the war," she told him. "And, as far as I can determine, it did exactly that... which bins the Ministry's primary theory on the subject. It wasn't until recently, however, that I'd come to realise exactly _why_ that was, however."

"Well, if anyone was going to blow a hole straight through the middle of a government bureaucracy's belief system, it was going to be you, dear," Richard stated quite sincerely.

"Be serious, Dad."

"I am, believe me."

"Why don't you tell us what you believe," Rabastan interjected, heading off any opportunity for Hermione to get her feathers ruffled. He may love her feisty spirit, but he also knew she was quick on the defence as a result of having been the brunt of much criticism during her school years by the Malfoy brat and his friends. As he intended on seducing her later, he wanted her to remain in as good a mood as possible tonight.

"Alright," she readily agreed, and Rabastan sat back to enjoy the show. His Hermione certainly enjoyed a good lecture, he now knew.

"In my studies of Muggle science, I realised something important," she began, "there are two different views on time theory. One idea, called A-Theory, states that there is a definitive past, a present, and a future. Events are split into moments that are catalogued in our memory as happening before, happening now, and happening someday. In this theory, a time-traveller can change the past and thus change their own future. The other idea, called B-Theory, what is also called Novikov's Self-Consistency Principle, talks about time in a circular function: events are described as interconnected, using terms such as 'earlier than', 'simultaneous with', and 'later than others'. B-Theory states that an event cannot exist as a single moment in time, but rather it is part of the whole cosmic event called 'life'. It says that a time-traveller changing the past will not alter the future they know, because they were meant to go back in time to set that event into play anyway. The official Ministry theory on time agrees with B-Theory. My own experiences of time-travel, however, make it clear that neither theory is absolutely correct. Time is not an either/or function. We live in a universe that is not A-Theory _or_ B-Theory, but rather the combination of the two."

"Darling, you're beginning to make my head ache," Helen stated, touching a bird-thin, lightly freckled hand to her forehead.

Rabastan hid his smile behind his own hand in agreement. Sometimes, Hermione could talk circles around people, making their heads spin.

Noting his smirk, Hermione nudged him with her elbow in silent censure. "In a nutshell, every person who has ever used a Time-Turner creates a splintered timeline," she stated. "That's why events seem to transpire on a closed timelike curve, and why the Ministry of Magic outlawed them completely." She _Accio_ 'd her wand to her hand and used it to draw a straight, glowing yellow line in the air. "Let's say this was time before the first Time-Turner was ever manufactured. Now, I build one of the devices and activate it to go back fifty years." She drew a curve from that point to an arbitrary point back down the line. "A-Theory states that if I do this, I could change events, creating splinter realities." She drew a branching line off of the main line."Or, I could potentially kill someone in my direct lineage, and therefore erase myself. Muggles call that 'the Grandfather Paradox'." She erased both lines with a simple wave of her wand.

"Cause and effect," Rabastan said. "All action has consequences."

"At least according to A-Theory, yes," she agreed. "If I were to go back and kill my ancestor, the effect would be to create an untenable situation that would unravel everything from fifty years ago and going forward. Every life he would have touched, every child he would have had would be gone in a blink." She snapped her fingers. "That's what happened when Eloise Mintumble went back accidentally five-hundred years and got stuck there. Twenty-five people were 'unmade' from her perspective as a result."

Richard whistled. "Unmade, as in they never were?"

Hermione nodded. "From how she remembered the world should be, yes. Those souls were never born. Everything they did in her world, everything they touched, every child they created never was, either."

"But how does anyone travelling through time remember what their original world was like if time changes as a result of their interference?" her mother asked.

"Because, as I said, the universe is not governed by A-Theory alone," Hermione explained. "B-Theory is also involved, and here's where things get interesting." She drew a new straight line, this time in blue. "B-Theory states that if I build the Time-Turner and go back fifty years, it's impossible for me to kill my grandfather, because—" She drew a circle from the end of the line back to the fifty year mark, and then back around to the end of the line. "—I was meant to go back to that time and do whatever it was I was going to do. If I hadn't, I wouldn't end up where I began."

Richard Granger sighed. "Honey, I'm a dentist, not Mister Spock. In English, if you please."

Hermione harrumphed, and it was such a cute sound coupled with an adorable expression that Rabastan couldn't help but chuckle. She tapped him on the knee with her wand in censure, primly cleared her throat once, and then turned to her father to explain things in terms he might understand.

"Do you remember that American film with the silver car that could travel through time?"

"The DeLorean!" her father exclaimed, warming up to the topic. He was, Rabastan had learned from Hermione, an Muggle automobile enthusiast. "Yes, a marvellous vehicle! Silly film, but a wonderful machine, that!"

"Do you remember the premise of the film?" she asked her dad. "The main character accidentally went back to the past and altered things between his parents, almost erasing himself from history. That's A-Theory and a perfect example of a Grandfather Paradox."

"Ohhhhh," her parents both said at the same time, obviously understanding the example. Rabastan, on the other hand, was thoroughly lost, having never seen said film, despite his forays into Muggle cinema over the years.

"Now, as for B-Theory..." Hermione tapped her wand against her knee, trying to come up with another model to illustrate. "Ah, yes! Do you remember that scary film about the robot played by that hulking Schwarzenegger fellow? He was sent back in time to try to kill a woman before she could become pregnant with a child that was destined to become a great leader of the human resistance against the robots in the future?"

Helen Granger shuddered. "Yes, we watched it that summer you'd been injured in that awful fight, after you'd come home from the hospital. You put up a fuss until we all agreed to sit through it with you. I remember there was a lot of violence with guns, and car chases, and something about a nuclear war." The woman frowned. "Didn't a young man also go back in time to save the woman, though? I seem to recall there was a handsome, young man in the show."

Hermione nodded. "Yes, and it turned out he was the father of the unborn child that the robot was trying to kill. He'd been sent into the past by his own son purposefully to put into motion the events that would lead to the son being born. That's a perfect example of a closed timelike curve, or a time loop. That's B-Theory in action."

"I think I understand," her father said. "He couldn't change the past. All he could do was set the future he knew in motion."

"Exactly!" Hermione said, really gaining momentum now. "What I'm proposing is that our universe actually works somewhere in between those two theories. Both A-Theory and B-Theory affect us." She again erased her 'air model' and redrew a straight line. "I think that just the act of jumping through time creates a splinter reality. An alternate dimension or multi-verse, so to speak." She drew another forking branch off of the original line, and then extended it forward. "I think this is what Madam Eloise Mintumble did when she went back to 1402 and ended up causing the 'un-birth' of twenty-five people, and why she was the poster-child for outlawing the use of Time-Turners altogether. The fact that those twenty-five people were even remembered as having once existed at all by her tells me she splintered reality and not erased it completely. If the universe were as B-Theorists state, she wouldn't have been able to go back and do that kind of damage to begin with."

Rabastan thought about that, turning her argument over in his head. What she was saying could explain how it was that he hadn't ended up staying in Azkaban for the entire time. According to Hermione, she knew his sentence had been 'life imprisonment', and she'd read he'd been one of the Death Eaters who had been broken out of prison by Voldemort when the Dementors sided with him and helped destroy the Maximum Security Level in 1995. Yet, that hadn't happened from his point of view. He'd been sprung from prison by Dumbledore in 1986, when the old man had cut a deal on his behalf with the Minister at the time, Millicent Bagnold. He'd lived an entirely different life from the one she'd known before she'd begun hopping through time.

"So, you're saying you and I created a whole new reality by accident?" he asked, astounded by the mere idea.

She nodded. "We did."

"Then, what happened in the reality that might-have-been, the one where you didn't end up covered in hot dark matter in the Department of Mysteries, which set everything into motion?"

She shrugged. "If I hadn't gone back in time and we hadn't fallen in love, you never would have reformed and turned spy for the Order, and probably would have been either killed in the second war or locked back up in Azkaban again with the rest of the Death Eaters after Voldemort's final death, never to see the light of day again. Whereas I—" She tapped her wand against her chin, contemplating an alternate future for herself. "—I'd never have met you in the past, obviously, and as such, probably would have never let go of my childish feelings for Ron. He and I would probably have dated, maybe even married, had two-point-five children, which we'd later send off to Hogwarts with Harry's children some nineteen or twenty years hence." She giggled and shook her head. "Honestly, isn't that the most bizarre idea you've ever heard? First of all, I can't see as how Ronald and I would ever have made a solid go of it except in some fictional fantasy world. We're just too opposite for it to work long-term. Then there's the idea of having his children." She shuddered. "I think I like this new reality better, thanks ever so."

Mindful of remaining proper in front of the parents, Rabastan reached for Hermione's hand and brought the back of it to his lips to bestow a small kiss to her knuckles. "I'm just glad we don't live in fantasy, but in reality—this reality, anyway."

"I'm happy this isn't all a dream, either," Hermione agreed, blushing prettily.

Lost in his lover's deep, glittering eyes, the colour of which reminded him of a lovely golden-brown tourmaline or the rich, velvety shade of a fine, aged whisky, Rabastan couldn't help but feel the circle of his life was finally complete. Unfortunately, he'd lost Rolph to Bellatrix's poison (ironically, the same formula he'd intended to use for his own suicide years ago), but he knew that even if he had a Time-Turner, he wouldn't attempt to go back and alter that event, for fear it would destroy the future that he had right here and now with the only woman he'd ever loved. Some events in the past should be left alone.

"Well, now that my head is sufficiently spinning... It's about time for that dinner, isn't it?" Mister Granger said, setting his tea cup and saucer aside and standing. He was giving Rabastan the 'you're an alright fellow, but I'm watching you' eye.

Rabastan stood and offered his lady a hand up. "Shall we?"

The four headed into the small dining area off the kitchen, and sat at the table to partake of their meal... and to begin creating a brand new family with a wide, open future ahead of them.

_**~FIN~** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scenes directly borrowed from J.K. Rowling's novels and re-written into Hermione's POV:
> 
> Chapter 34 - "The Department of Mysteries", from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
> 
> Chapter 25 – "Shell Cottage" from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
> 
> Chapter 26 – "Gringotts" from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
> 
> Chapter 27 – "The Final Hiding Place" from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
> 
> The films referenced by Hermione in the Epilogue were "Back to the Future" and "The Terminator".
> 
> Well, our tale has finally come to its end. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. Tackling this story has been an amazing journey for me as a writer. Months of research regarding the theoretical science of time-travel and of particle physics was time well spent (and it was fun finding out how vast & magnificent the cosmos really is!), but figuring out how to combine that information with the fictional concept of magic -specifically within JKR's canon material in the HP universe- was a wonderful challenge for me. I have come to love the ship of Rabastan & Hermione over the past two years, and it's my hope you've come to appreciate them a little more through sharing this Alternate Universe tale with me. I'm hoping to find more fics with these two involved, as the age difference is about the same between them as between Severus and Hermione, which seems to have a big following. Perhaps we'll see more Rabastan x Hermione fics around here in future? *hopes* Anyway, thank you for sharing this road with me, dear readers! I hope you'll consider leaving a review, letting me know what you thought. :)


	17. Story Awards

****

**Nominated for "Best Soul Bond Fic" and "Best Time Travel Fic" at the[Shrieking Shack Society's 2017 Mischief Managed Awards](http://shriekingshacksociety.weebly.com/2017-nominees.html).**


End file.
